MARIAN, Ind. – Women's basketball continued to assert its will on the offensive end of the court Friday evening against Wilberforce to the tune of a 94-49 victory in its opening game of the Leah Whitaker Memorial Tournament. The 45 point margin of victory was the largest such margin for the Bears since the 2009-10 season when they defeated Malone 107-49 back on January 23, 2010. The win also moved the Bears to 20-1 all-time against Wilberforce.
For the third time in as many games this season, SSU reached the 90 point mark. Priscila Santos led the offense with 22 points on the evening as she went 10-of-17 from the field with two more points on the line. Alannah Sheets also chipped in with 17 points while Rachael Young added 12 points off the bench as she hit four 3-pointers in the contest. The Bears shot just shy of 53-percent from the field (36-of-68) while limiting Wilberforce to a 12-of-57 shooting night (21%).
The Bears began to blow the game open with twelve and a half minutes to go in the opening half. Leading 11-10 just over eight minutes into the contest, Shawnee State went on a 10-0 run with six of those points coming from Santos during that initial run to go up 21-10. Wilberforce scored the next three points but a three from Young would begin an 18-3 run from the Bears to put them up 39-16 with 3:31 to play in the opening half.
Wilberforce would narrow the margin in the final moments of the opening half but the Bears still took a 15 point lead into the locker room, 43-28. Any thoughts of a comeback from the Wilberforce side were crushed right out of the gates in the second half as the Bears scored 34 of first 36 points during the first nine minutes of the second half to take a 67-30 lead.
A 3-pointer from Kamari Jordan with 6:43 left in the game would give the Bears their first lead of 40 in the game, 77-37. They would never trail by less than those 40 points for the remainder of the game. The Bears largest lead was 47 points which happened on two occasions with the final of those two scores coming with 1:29 left in the game before a Wilberforce basket in the final seconds made the final a 45 point win for the Bears.
Shawnee State will be back in action tomorrow against Trinity Christian (Ill.). Trinity Christian dropped its opening game of the weekend to host Indiana Wesleyan, 75-49, before the Bears took the court for their game.
