Balanced attack leads Pride to comfortable win over No. 20 Grand View
DUBUQUE, Iowa - In a matchup with major posteason implications, the Clarke University women's basketball team earned a resounding 93-78 victory over No. 20 Grand View University on Wednesday evening.
The Pride's win clinched the top seed of the Heart of America Athletic Conference tournament and at least a share of the Heart regular season championship as CU now holds the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Vikings by winning both matchups during the regular season but Grand View can still come back to share the regular season title if they win out and Clarke fails to win just one of their final three games.
As for the game, it was a strong opening quarter that resulted in CU finishing the period with an 11-point lead at 24-13 behind 9-of-14 (64.3%) shooting from the field an eight-point periods from both Taylor Haase and Maci Kuchta as the pair only missed one shot of the eight combined shots they took with Kuchta nailing both three point attempts she took.
It was a return to early season scoring form for Kuchta as the Pride point guard scored more than 10 points for the first time since Dec. 2 with a 15-point performance against Grand View on Wednesday on 6-of-12 shooting from the field and 3-for-5 from three point range after she started her season with more than 10 in six of the first eight games. The gym was on triple-double watch for Kuchta as she grabbed nine rebounds and added seven assists while also recording a steal on the night.
The other three quarters would end up playing fairly close at a 20-19 second in favor of the Vikings and the Pride winning the third and fourth 23-21 and 27-24 respectively as Clarke would climb their lead to 17 at its largest in the fourth quarter and Grand View would cut it to single digits on a pair of occasions in the second half, once in the third and another in the fourth but never pulled closer than eight points at any point after halftime.
Kuchta was just one point off of the team lead for the game as Mya Merschman finished with a team-high 16 points but all seven players who stepped foot scored at least nine points and six of them finished in double figures as Izzie Peterson finished with a career-high 14 points, Taylor Norris added 14 off the bench, Nicole McDermott finished with a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double, Taylor Haase finished with 12 points in just 16 minutes due to foul trouble, and Madison Lindauer finished with nine points.
Clarke had a strong shooting night finishing at 33-for-59 (55.9%) from the field, 7-of-18 (38.9%) from three, and only missed three of their 23 free throw attempts (87%) as they shared the ball well to assist on 21 of the team's 33 made field goals while also outrebounding the Vikings 38-31.
The game's leading scorer was GVU's Anna Gossling as she finished with 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field as she was supported by 16 points from Cleao Murray and 10 points from Ellie Rengstorf but no one else in the Vikings lineup had more than nine.
Clarke women's basketball will host their final home game of the regular season when they host Senior Day on Saturday against Missouri Valley College for a 12:00 p.m. CT tip against those Vikings with Senior Day festivities to take place between the completion of the women's game and tip of the men's game.