Women's Basketball Picks Up WHAC Win Over Rochester Christian

(Lansing, MI)-- The Cleary Cougar women's basketball team had a back and forth game to conclude the 2024 portion of their schedule Wednesday evening, and came out on top after earning a 69-63 victory over the Rochester Christian Warriors.

Rylee Thomas would hit the first of her four three pointers to start the game.  After the two teams traded baskets for the next four minutes, Cleary started to pull away.  An Amy Jackson layup extended the lead to four points, and a Mileisha Rodriguez layup made the lead six points for the Cougars.  Cleary's lead would grow to nine after Taedom Stein made a layup with 2:05 to play in the quarter, but a basket with 39 seconds cut the lead to 17-10, where it would remain to finish out the first ten minutes.  Taedom Stein would hit a layup and a pair of free throws to start the second quarter, and the Cougar lead would grow to eleven points.  RCU get the deficit back to single digits, and slowly built their way back into the game.  By the 4:15 mark of the quarter, the game would be tied, and with just over a minute to play in the half, the Warriors held a 37-36 lead.  That score would remain until halftime.

Cleary stormed out of the gate in the second half, as Amy Jackson hit a three to give the Cougars back the lead, and Rylee Thomas hit another three pointer just one possession later.  Another Thomas three would see the Cougars lead grow back to eight points, and the two teams would trade points the rest of the quarter, as Cleary led 54-46 with ten minutes to play.  An Amelia Storm layup saw the Cleary lead back to double-digits, and after a Warrior technical foul, Amy Jackson made both free throws to give Cleary a twelve point advantage.  The Warriors would fight back, and cut the Cleary advantage to two points with just over a minute to play in the game.  A Samantha Hoelscher layup, followed by a crucial defensive stop, and a pair of free throws by Hoelscher iced the game, and gave Cleary their third WHAC victory of the season.

Rylee Thomas had a career high 19 points on 7/13 shooting, with 4 made three pointers, to go with 6 rebounds to lead the Cougars.  Amy Jackson and Samantha Hoelscher each added 11 points, while Mileisha Rodriguez had another double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.  Izzy Dugal added 10 points and 5 rebounds off the bench.

The win was Cleary's 10th victory in program history, and gives the Cougars a 4-9 overall record, 3-3 within the WHAC, heading into the Christmas break.  The Cougars will return to action on Saturday, January 4, 2025, when they travel to UM-Dearborn to take on the Wolverines in a WHAC battle.