Wheaton Women's Basketball Falls To Clark

The Wheaton College women's basketball team dropped a 60-51 decision to Clark University on Monday night at Emerson Gymnasium in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) matchup. Tonight's game was originally scheduled for Saturday, February 9 but was postponed twice due to the recent blizzard that hit the New England region.

Wheaton sophomore forward Abbie Brickley (Sandy, Utah/Skyline)scored a game-high 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field (8-for-10 at the free throw line), eight rebounds, three steals and one assist. Freshman forward Kiley Shoemaker (Fayetteville, N.Y./Fayetteville-Manlius) chipped in with nine points, eight boards, one block and one assist. Classmate Rebecca Arnone (Litchfield, N.H./Campbell) tallied eight points, four assists, three rebounds and one steal.

The Cougars were led by Ashleigh Condon (Hull, Mass./Hull)offensively as the junior guard compiled a team-high 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting, four rebounds, a game-high six assists and four steals. Emily Reilly (Marlborough, Mass./Marlborough) tallied 13 points, six rebounds, one steal and one assist while Megan Grondin (Cumberland, Maine/Greely) had 13 points, three rebounds, four steals and two assists.

Clark shot 44.0-percent (22-for-50) from the field, 16.7-percent (2-for-12) from beyond the arc and 82.4-percent (14-for-17) at the free throw line. Wheaton connected on 32.1-percent (17-for-53) of its shots, 25.0-percent (5-for-20) from long distance and 80.0-percent (12-for-15) at the line. The Lyons outrebounded the Cougars, 37-30. Clark held a 32-20 advantage in points in the paint and a 25-20 margin in points off of turnovers.

Trailing 20-9 with 5:38 remaining in the first half, the Lyons used an 11-3 run to pull within five points (23-18) at the break. Brickley connected on both of her free throws at the 5:03 mark after being fouled on an attempted layup in the paint to jumpstart the run. Brickley and Shoemaker added back-to-back layups over a 2:29 stretch before senior tri-captain Hallie Vitagliano (Newton, Mass./Newton North) swished a three-pointer on a nice feed from sophomore guard Melissa McLaughlin (Spindale, N.C./R-S Central) to close out the scoring spurt for Wheaton.

Senior forward Kelsey Giedymin (Shrewsbury, Mass./Shrewsbury) added her only bucket of the first half for the Cougars with 54-seconds left to play and Condon also went 1-for-2 from the free throw line to wrap up the opening 20 minutes of action.

Clark turned in an 11-6 scoring run to begin the second half to take a 34-24 advantage at the 14:07 mark of the stanza. Condon led all scorers with five points during that stretch while Reilly added a layup at the beginning of the run (18:29). Junior forward Esther Cohn (Chapel Hill, N.C./Carolina Friends School) and freshman guard Brooke Brennan (Weston, Mass./The Rivers School) also notched two points apiece to round out the scoring.

The Cougars led by as many as 14 points (49-35) with 7:01 left to play in the contest. Wheaton trimmed down its deficit to as low as seven points, 56-49, at the 1:11 mark but the Cougars went 4-for-5 at the line in the final minute to snap their three-game losing streak.

Wheaton (8-15, 5-11 NEWMAC) visits MIT Wednesday, Feb. 13 for a NEWMAC clash at 8 p.m.