Southern Illinois University
4-3
SIUE
3-5
Women's Basketball coasts past SIUE, 71-57
12/04/2015 | 12:00:00 | Women's Basketball
By: Will Becque
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Four Salukis scored in double figures as the Southern Illinois University women's basketball team coasted past sister school SIU-Edwardsville, 71-57 Friday afternoon at the SIU Arena.
SIU (4-3) has now won back-to-back contests for the second time this season, and improves to 3-1 all-time against the Cougars. The Salukis were led in scoring by Rishonda Napier, who finished with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting to go along with six rebounds and three assists.
"That was a good team that we beat today," said Napier. "We started the game off with an excellent amount of energy. It was a good win. We're proud of ourselves."
Southern was aided by their largest home crowd of the season thanks to Field Trip Day, with over 1,500 area youths in attendance.
"Those kids were great," said Napier. "They were cheering the whole game and screaming their heads off. It really kept us going."
Celina VanHyfte established a new career-high with 11 points, while Kylie Giebelhausen (11) and Cartaesha Macklin (10) also scored in double figures. Dyana Pierre narrowly missed her third double-double of the season, tallying nine points and 13 boards.
I feel like we're finally starting to gel a little bit," said head coach Cindy Stein. "I feel like we've had some bumps in the road. I really liked how we started the game. I felt like we were hitting on all cylinders. We were playing really scrappy defense. Our shots were dropping. We were taking good open shots."
SIU never trailed in the contest, and outrebounded the Cougars, 55-to-44 while getting to the free throw line 12 more times than SIUE. The 55 rebounds are the most this season for Southern and the most since the Salukis snagged 57 boards against UNI in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament on March 13, 2015.
"We knew they were a great rebounding team," said Stein. `They get to the free throw line a lot, we knew we needed to get to the free-throw line 10 more times than them; we did that. We out-rebounded them, that was a factor. (SIUE) is a very good team. We feel very fortunate to have won today."
SIU returns to action on Tuesday, Dec. 8 when they travel the University of Illinois to take on the Illini. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. CST.
