Poor shooting plagues Tiger women in MCC quarterfinal loss to St. Ambrose

For the second night in a row, St. Ambrose University brought an end to an Iowa Wesleyan basketball season.

This time it was the women who fell to SAU in the quarterfinals of the Midwest Collegiate Conference tournament. The Tigers shot only 22.2 percent in the 69-52 loss on Thursday night in Ruble Arena.

The third-seeded IWC women were 14-for-63 from the field, unable to take advantage of numerous good shots against the Queen Bees. SAU (13-15 overall) shot 38.2 percent (26 of 68), including eight 3-pointers, and out-rebounded IWC 55-38.

The Tigers finish their season at 17-11.

IWC was down as many as 13 points in the first half, a half that ended with SAU up by 12, 33-21.

Anna Jones led the Tigers in the first half with nine points and eight rebounds but Wesleyan shot just seven-for-34 (20.6 percent) in the first 20 minutes.

The second half was not much better for the Tigers, who never got closer than 10 points: Adilene Villalobos made two free-throws to make the score 62-52. A highlight for IWC in the second half was shooting 100 percent (16 of 16) from the free throw line.

Jones led IWC with 25 points and 13 rebounds. Villalobos had nine points and six rebounds in her final game for the Tigers. Ashley Kruse fouled out with eight points and four rebounds. Samantha Hodge led the team with five assists.

The game was also the final one in Jones? career. The IWC guard finished with 1,518 points, fourth in school history. She was only the fourth player in IWC women?s basketball history to go over 1,500 points. She also finished with 804 rebounds, fifth-best in school history, and was the fifth player to go over 800. Jones also holds school records with 529 assists and 351 steals.

St. Ambrose will go on to play at No. 2 seed Mt. Mercy University on Saturday at 2 p.m. in a semifinal matchup. The other semifinal game will feature fourth-seeded William Penn University at No. 1 seed Grand View University.