Kelchen reaches 1,000 points, Pride win big over Statesmen

DUBUQUE, Iowa - An ordinary Monday night game in January became memorable for the Clarke University women's basketball team as they earned an 85-48 win over William Penn University.

In the fourth quarter of that win, Pride senior center Emma Kelchen reached 1,000 career points with a pair of free throws with just under a minute left to reach 19 for the game, which puts the Bellevue, Iowa native exactly at 1,000 points in her career. Kelchen becomes the 15th player in program history to reach the mark as 659 of those points have come in the last two seasons, earning her All-Heart First Team in 2021-22 and currently scoring 10.8 points per game.

"Emma earned every single one of those 1,000 points," head coach Courtney Boyd said. "She has put in the time to change her game, be a threat on both ends of the floor, and draw the double team in the post. She just joined a great group of scorers and is more than deserving."

Kelchen's complete statline to finish the game was 19 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and a steal while shooting 55.6 percent from the field and going 9-for-10 from the free throw line. It was the second-straight game for quality work out of the post position for the Pride as Taylor Haase finished with a game-high 22 points on 10-of-11 shooting from the field while adding six rebounds of her own. 

The game itself saw Clarke get off and running in the first quarter, outscoring the Statesmen 30-13 in the period as they never looked back, outscoring WPU in every period to extend their lead to the eventual 37-point victory. In that opening 10 minutes, CU seemed like they couldn't miss, going 12-of-16 (75%) from the field and 5-for-6 (83.3%) from three point range.

That strong shooting was opened by Skylar Culbertson hitting back-to-back three pointers to get the scoring going as she would only take one more shot for the remainder of the game to stuff the statsheet to a six-point, eight-assist, and seven-rebound night.

Clarke women's basketball will now be on the road for the next two this week starting with a Thursday night matchup with Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa for a 5:30 p.m. CT tip.