Wright State, IUPUI Advance to #HLWBB Championship
Wright State 73, Cleveland State 62
By David Hayden
Sports Capital Journalism Program, IUPUI
INDIANAPOLIS -- Junior guard Angel Baker’s 29 points lifted top-seeded Wright State back to the Horizon League championship game.
Wright State (17-7) advanced to the conference title game for the third time in four seasons and seventh overall with a 73-62 victory over Cleveland State at Indiana Farmers Coliseum. The Raiders last won the Horizon League Championship in 2019. They will meet defending champion IUPUI at 12 p.m. on Tuesday.
Baker, an All-League First Team member from Pike High School in Indianapolis, made 13 for 25 shots and played all 40 minutes. “It means a lot coming back home,” she said.
Redshirt sophomore Shamarre Hale chipped in with 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting, with nine rebounds.
Wright State and IUPUI, the last two Horizon League tournament champions, were scheduled to meet on January 15 and 16. But the games were canceled as a result of COVID-19 issues within the IUPUI program.
While Cleveland State’s 87.5% free throw shooting kept the Vikings in the game, Wright State’s 48-30 rebounding advantage was too much to overcome. “We work on it every day,” Wright State coach Katrina Merriweather said of her team’s rebounding. “It’s our identity.”
Wright State outscored Cleveland State in the paint, 42-30.
Rebounding may help decide the outcome of the championship game. IUPUI outrebounded its opponents in 17 of its 19 games this season, winning 14 of those 17 games.
No. 6 seed Cleveland State (11-9) was held to 35.2% shooting. The Vikings made just 3 of 16 shots in the fourth quarter, 18.75%, as the Raiders built a 12-point lead on Baker’s jump shot with 5:19 to play.
The Vikings were led by senior All-League First Team player Mariah White, the League’s Defensive Player of the Year. White scored 24 points but made just 7 for 20 shots. Junior forward Isabelle Gradwell had 13 points.
Wright State’s senior All-League Third Team and All-Defensive Team center Tyler Frierson made her 6-foot-4 presence felt early by making her first two shots. But Frierson got into early foul trouble, leaving the game after she was charged with a second foul with 2:44 to go in the first quarter. Frierson was limited to 10 minutes and scored 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting.
With Frierson on the bench, Hale made her impact felt by crashing the boards and making tough inside buckets to keep the paint dominance alive for the Raiders. Six of Hale’s nine rebounds were on the offensive boards.
The game was tied five times within a span of 7:19 in the third quarter. But a 12-2 Wright State run, with Baker and Hale combining for 11 points, gave the Raiders a 67-55 lead with 5:19 to play. Cleveland State was held to nine points in the fourth quarter.
As Merriweather spoke, IUPUI and Milwaukee were competing for the other spot in the championship game. “I have a lot of respect for both programs, both coaches,” she said. “And I know it’s going to be a knock-down, drag-out game tomorrow no matter who we play.”
IUPUI 56, Milwaukee 46
By Alex Burr
Sports Capital Journalism Program, IUPUI
INDIANAPOLIS -- The IUPUI Jaguars defeated the Milwaukee Panthers 56-46 in a semifinal of the Horizon League Championship at Indiana Farmers Coliseum to advance to the championship game for a second consecutive season. Jaguar senior Macee Williams, the first three-time Horizon League Player of the Year, scored 17 points to become the leading scorer in school history with 1,823 in her career. Williams also had 15 rebounds.
IUPUI will meet Wright State for the first time this season in the championship game Tuesday at noon ET.
Jaguar junior Rachel McLimore led IUPUI with 19 points, including four free throws within a span of 26 seconds in the game’s final minute to give her team a 56-46 lead with 28 seconds to play.
Milwaukee won at IUPUI twice in as many nights in January, after COVID-19 issues had forced the Jaguars to cancel four consecutive games. But with a spot in the championship game at stake, Milwaukee’s total of 46 points was a season low, 10 fewer than its previous low and more than 18 points beneath the season average of 64.84. The Jaguars held the Panthers to 28.4% shooting.
“Our kids just stayed focused on defense,” said IUPUI coach Austin Parkinson after the 200
th victory of his career. “Both games we played them, we were up at halftime, but came out in the third quarter with not the sense of urgency that we needed. Today, we really tried to hone in on that and open up a little bit of a lead there, and we were able to hang on.”
A Williams layup 25 seconds into the third quarter gave her a career total of 1,810 points, one more than Julie Rotramel, who had set the previous record of 1,809 from 1987-1991. Williams set the career record despite the cancellation of six games because of COVID-19 issues. When asked about the scoring record, Williams said she could not have done it without her teammates. “It means so much to me,” she said. “I think back to all my teammates helping me improve in my game, and all the hype and motivation I get from my coaches.”
Williams was more focused on a goal that had eluded the Jaguars a year ago despite their conference tournament victory. The thrill of the school’s first appearance in the NCAA tournament came to an abrupt end when the tournament was canceled because of COVID-19. “We take each day and really focus on the day, and not on the next game,”
Williams said. “Really just coming in tomorrow ready to go, and focus on Wright State.”
Milwaukee senior guard Brandi Bisping scored 12 points with 11 rebounds to lead the Panthers.
A year after the Jaguars held Green Bay scoreless in the fourth quarter of the championship game, the semifinal represented another defensive masterpiece. IUPUI did not give up a shooting foul until the 7:07 mark of the third quarter, and only allowed the Panthers to take seven foul shots all game.
The Panthers corralled 14 offensive rebounds, but only finished with nine second chance points. The Panthers also shot 3 for 25 (12%) on 3-point shots, with Bisping 3 of 8 and her teammates 0 for 17. The Jaguars held 6-foot-2 sophomore Megan Walstad, one of the Panthers’ key players, scoreless until 5:16 to play. Walstad scored 6 points on 3-of-9 shooting.
At the end of the first quarter, IUPUI led Milwaukee 16-7. IUPUI held the Panthers to 25% from the field and forced seven Milwaukee turnovers. The second quarter was a real defensive slugfest, with IUPUI edging the Panthers, 8-7. IUPUI would not have even reached that many points were it not for a buzzer beater by junior guard Destiny Perkins, who got a 3-pointer up as time expired to make the score IUPUI 24, Milwaukee 14.
The pace picked up in the third quarter, and Williams and McLimore combined for nine points with Williams grabbing 3 offensive rebounds. A 3-point shot by Natalie Andersen with 3:26 to go in the quarter put the Jaguars ahead 39-23 to equal their largest lead of the game. While the Panthers came out aggressively and forced some turnovers, Milwaukee was not able to come closer than eight points for the rest of the afternoon.
“We wanted to eliminate fouling,” Parkinson said. “We fouled a lot the first few times we played them, and we wanted to guard the 3-point line. They were 3 for 25 from the (3-point) line.”
Milwaukee coach Kyle Rechlicz knew the one advantage that IUPUI had was trying to get back to where the team was last year. “For us, you gotta hit shots in games like this,” Rechlicz said. “When you have the top two defenses in the conference, you know it’s going to be a battle. And it sure was. We knew that as a coaching staff, we tried to simulate that in practice this week….
“I actually could not be more proud of our team,” Rechlicz said. “I know we came up short today, but everything that we did, the tenacity they played with, the energy, from top to bottom. From our number one player on the court to our last player on the bench, everyone gave everything they had.”