Wesleyan women’s basketball handed first loss

FULTON, Mo. — Coming into Monday night’s road game at William Woods University, the Iowa Wesleyan women’s basketball team had vanquished all challengers through the first two weeks of the 2021-22 season. By the night’s end, the Tigers had their first loss.

Iowa Wesleyan scored its lowest point total of the year and gave up over 70 for just the second time this season as William Woods held off the Tigers 72-64.

The Owls jumped out to an early lead and had the Tigers in an early 9-point hole. William Woods led 20-11 after one quarter and 36-28 at the half.

The Tigers began to push back in the third quarter, and even cut the lead to one possession on a couple of occasions. One of those was with 4:07 remaining, when Kyla Moore hit a 3-pointer to slice the William Woods lead down to 46-43.

At the end of the third quarter, the Tigers were in striking distance. William Woods held a 49-45 lead with one period remaining.

The Tigers cut the lead down to just 2 points when Maci Kuchta put in a layup with 7:39 left in the game. They could never get it any closer, as William Woods hung on and then pulled away in the last five minutes.

Iowa Wesleyan had trouble on the boards all night. William Woods out-rebounded the Tigers 40-29. The Owls also scored 32 bench points. The Tigers couldn’t muster one point from anyone other than the starting five.

Brittany West scored 19 points and pulled down 9 rebounds to lead the Tigers in the loss. Moore finished with 15 points and 8 assists.

Brielle Baker scored 15 points in the loss. Kuchta scored 13, and Breanna Wendland put in 2.

Iowa Wesleyan is now 4-1. The Tigers will try to complete the season sweep of Hannibal-Lagrange on Saturday at Ruble Arena. That game has a 1 p.m. tip off.