DAYTON – The Wright State women's basketball team remained undefeated at home with an 81-67 victory over Eastern Illinois Saturday afternoon inside the Nutter Center.
The Raiders move to 5-0 at home this season, the first time that's happened since starting 5-0 at home early in the 2015-16 campaign.
Wright State (6-3) now turns around and looks to continue the home winning streak Tuesday morning in the Raiders' annual Education Day contest, welcoming Bowling Green to the Nutter Center for a 11 a.m. tipoff. Fans can keep up with Tuesday morning's game by watching on ESPN+ or following live stats.
Saturday afternoon,
Alexis Hutchison led the charge, tallying a season-best 32 points, one point shy of her career high, on 12-of-17 shooting as she connected on six of her eight three-point attempts.
Lauren Scott added 15 points, her third double-digit scoring game in the last four contests, while
Kacee Baumhower tallied 11 points of her own.
Cara VanKempen notched nine points on a trio of three-pointers and
Rachel Loobie finished with eight points and a team-high eight rebounds.
The Raiders led by eight at the break before opening the second half on a 13-3 run thanks in part to eight points from Hutchison to lead 49-31 at the midway point of the third quarter, their largest lead of the game. After Eastern Illinois cut the Wright State lead down to nine with a jumper to open the fourth quarter, the Raiders responded with the next five points to push the margin back to double digits for good. Defensively, Wright State locked down Eastern Illinois down the stretch, holding the visitors to seven points – and just two made baskets from the floor – over the final four-plus minutes to secure the win.
Wright State finished the afternoon shooting an even 50 percent from the floor (25-of-56), shooting a combined 58 percent over the second and third quarters to gain just enough separation from Eastern Illinois (3-7), who was playing its third game of the week. The Raiders were 46 percent (12-of-26) from three-point range, with eight threes during the second and third quarters. Eastern Illinois ended the afternoon at 44 percent shooting (25-of-57) but was just 4-of-10 from three-point range.
