BOX SCORE
KIRKLAND, Wash. – Playing its second straight weekend on the road, Corban's women's basketball team made a valiant effort in the second half but could not overcome the double-digit deficit in a 72-64 loss at the hands of Northwest Friday evening inside the Pavilion.
With tonight's result, Corban falls to 8-14 overall and 3-7 in Cascade Collegiate Conference action. Meanwhile, Northwest improves to 11-7 overall and 7-3 in league play.
Sophomore
Katie Steigleman (Eugene, Ore.) led the Warriors in scoring with a team-high 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field to go along with a team-leading 10 rebounds. Fellow sophomore
Becky Buhler (Clackamas, Ore.) came off Corban's bench and was the only other Warrior in double figures with 11 points and nine rebounds.
In the opening half, both teams battled back and forth until the score was knotted at 13-13 following a jumper in the paint by freshman
Emily Tsugawa (Gladstone, Ore.) with 9:29 remaining. Over the next five-plus minutes, Northwest would use a 15-7 run en route to grabbing an eight-point lead (28-20) after a Jessalyn Jackson lay-in with 4:23 left. Corban would creep back to within four points (28-24) at halftime thanks to a closing 4-0 run that was capped with a pair of free throws by freshman
Tess Bennett (Sutherlin, Ore.).
The second half opened with Northwest using a 9-5 run en route to grabbing another eight-point lead (37-29) thanks to a McKenzie McKean lay-up with 16:41 left in the game. Corban would pull to within one point (39-38) thanks to a 9-2 run that began with a three-pointer by Buhler. Unfortunately that would be the closest that the Warriors would get, as Northwest used an 11-0 run over a span of three-plus minutes and grabbed its first double-digit lead of the final half (50-38) with 8:28 to go. The host Eagles would push their lead to as much as 14 points (70-56) before settling for the eight-point victory (72-64), as Steigleman canned a half-court three-pointer as time expired.
Northwest was led by Jessica Wilkerson's game-high 31 points on 11-for-21 shooting from the field that included a 7-for-10 performance from beyond the three-point line. Wilkerson's game-high performance was aided by Jackson's 14-point, 12-rebound performance to go along with Erika Hornyak's 14-point showing.
As a team, Corban shot 23-for-67 (34.3%) from the field to go along with an 8-for-23 (34.8%) performance from beyond the three-point arc and a 10-for-14 (71.4%) showing from the free throw line. On the other hand, Northwest was 26-for-69 (37.7%) from the field, 9-for-23 (39.1%) from long distance, and 11-for-15 (73.3%) at the charity stripe.
Corban will return to the court tomorrow night – Saturday, January 23rd – when they close out a four-game road trip against The Evergreen State College beginning at 5:30 p.m. in Olympia, Washington.