Lakeland College

Muskies fall in NCAA Tournament 79-46

Athletics - posted on 3/5/2010

The Lakeland College women's basketball team dropped out of the NCAA Tournament with a 79-46 loss in the first round to DePauw on Friday, Mar. 5.

Lakeland (22-7) trailed the entire game and found itself down 16-2 in the first seven minutes.

"Inexperience seemed to hurt us tonight," Lakeland head coach Teri Johnson said. "DePauw is used to being here. We played tentative and were careless with the ball. We were down 9-2 early, but it could have been 9-6 had we converted our lay ups."

DePauw (26-3) committed just nine turnovers on the night, below their season average of 14 per game, and only three in the first half as they raced to a 42-21 halftime lead.

They extended the advantage to 30 with a 10-0 run out of halftime until Chelsea Coenen (Wrightstown, Wis.) put Lakeland on the board in the half at the 17:14 mark.

"They are probably the most physical team we've seen this season," Johnson said. "Their inside play broke down our offense and forced us to work harder to rebound."

The NCAA-leader with a rebounding margin of 17.1 per game, the Tigers out-rebounded Lakeland 47-31 and scored 38 points in the paint.

DePauw, eighth in the nation in scoring defense, held the Muskies to their lowest point total on the season. Lakeland shot just 32.2 percent from the field on the night compared to 46.3 for the Tigers.

Leah Eisner (Stevens Point, Wis.) continued her solid play of late to lead the Muskies with 10 points and nine rebounds in 21 minutes off of the bench. Mary Dennewitz (Chicago, Ill.) added nine points and four boards while KC Blahnik (Gladstone, Mich.) and Katie Kilton (Waukesha, Wis.) each added eight points.

Kate Walker paced the 11th ranked Tigers with 15 points, including 13 in the first half on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting from the field. Brooke Osborne added 12 points and Jenna Fernandez and Courtney Lauder contributed 10 points each. They have now won 22 straight and advance to play the winner of Hope/Denison.

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