Sports
Pointers beat La Crosse, snag top WIAC spot
The Pointer
rnech142@uwsp.edu
The Pointers women’s basketball team won at least a portion of its fourth Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular season title in history, their first since the 2005 season.
The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point cemented the title in a 63-61 victory against the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse on Wednesday night. The team will need a win next week against UW-Platteville on Saturday to pick up the top spot in the upcoming WIAC Championship tournament.
The Pointers defeated the Eagles after tying the game 25-25 at halftime and once again at 45-45 midway through the second half. Three key free throws from freshman Cassie Bandow within the last minute of play led the Pointers to the victory.
“It’s a tribute to our program to win 20 games every year, year in and year out, bringing in a batch of new kids every year,” UW-SP coach Shirley Egner said. “It’s a tribute to our kids buying into our system.”
The Pointers scored 24 points off turnovers in the win, taking advantage of the opportunities they were handed. After a disappointing loss to UW-Whitewater on Saturday, Feb. 14, the team needed to get back on track to cement the top WIAC spot, even if they end up sharing it with UW-Whitewater, who needs a win and a Pointer loss on Saturday, Feb. 21, to share the title.
“It’s really exciting and it says a lot about all the hard work our team puts into the program,” senior forward Ashley Baker said. “La Crosse definitely put up a fight tonight; I think everyone pulled together tonight; we played really great together at the end and came up with the win.”
Baker led the team when she earned a career-high 18 points and eight rebounds in the game. Britta Peterson added 14 points to the scoreboard and also had eight rebounds.
This past week, the UW-SP women’s basketball team was ranked eighth in the D3hoops.com poll despite suffering a 61-59 loss to UW- Whitewater on Saturday, Feb. 14.
The team will need a win next week against UW-Platteville on Saturday to pick up the top spot for themselves and knock UW-Whitewater into second place. They would then become top seed for the upcoming WIAC Championship tournament.
“When you can win a WIAC championship and position yourself for the number one seed and if we can take care of business on Saturday, it doesn’t get any better than that,” Egner said.
