FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The No. 3-ranked Indiana Tech women's basketball team ended its home slate of regular season games with a 78-57 victory over Lourdes University in Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) action inside the Schaefer Center. The Warriors finish the regular season with a perfect 15-0 record at home and clinch a share of the regular season conference title with the victory.
Kendall Knapke scored a game-high 27 points and moved to into fifth place of the career scoring leaders at Tech, passing 2004 graduate Ty Chambers as the Hoagland, Indiana native now has 1,556 points in her illustrious career. She now sits 39 points behind 20014 graduate Ulyssia Richmond for fourth place in the career record books.
Alexis Hill added 19 points and five assists while
DeAnn Kauffman chipped in 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Rachel Bell had 12 points and 11 assists for her first double-double of the season while grabbing five rebounds.
Knapke led off the game with a triple 11 seconds into the contest to start an 8-0 run for the Warriors and forcing the Gray Wolves to call a timeout just 92 seconds into the night. Lourdes came right back with a 6-2 run out of the timeout to cut the deficit to four, but another triple from Knapke, who finished the game with seven three-pointers, sparked a 10-0 for Tech as the hosts went 11-13 from the floor in the quarter and held a 26-11 lead at the end of the period.
A 7-0 run in the middle of the second quarter propelled the Warriors lead to 22 points at 38-156, their largest of the half and while they only outscored the visitors by a point in the second set of 10 minutes, the Orange and Black took a 40-24 lead into the halftime intermission.
Tech's hot shooting continued into the second half as they went 8-13 from the floor in the third quarter en route to 23 points and a 63-43 lead at the end of the period. Lourdes cut the deficit down to 10 points with just under five and a half minutes to play in the third, but the Warriors countered with a 10-0 spurt and held the Gray Wolves scoreless for four minutes and 19 seconds to regain the momentum.
The hosts grew their lead up to 23 points early in the fourth quarter and never let the visitors get the deficit under 19 points and they completed the season sweep and improve to 15-1 all-time against the Gray Wolves.
Tech (26-3, 17-2) can claim the outright WHAC title on Saturday in their regular season finale at Rochester College. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. from Garth Pleasant Arena.
