ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – Lewis University's women's basketball looks to extend its win streak as it heads to Kansas City this weekend for a pair of contests. The Flyers will take on Rockhurst this Thursday (Feb. 10) at 5:30 p.m. and then will take on William Jewell on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
Last Time Out – Lewis avenged an earlier defeat to Illinois Springfield with a 72-60 win over the Prairie Stars on Monday evening at Neil Carey Arena.
Kathryn Schmidt (Hampshire, Ill./Burlington Central) led the Flyers with 23 points while
Taylor Gugliuzza (New Lenox, Ill./Lincoln-Way West) added 16 and
Amelia Motz (Canton, Ohio/St. Vincent-St. Mary) finished with 13 points. Gugliuzza also added eight rebounds and six blocked shots.
GLVC Tournament – Lewis moved up two spots from ninth to seventh in the latest edition of the GLVC Point Ratings System (PRS) which determines the seeds for the GLVC Tournament. All 15 teams advance to the conference tournament this season with the number one seed in the final PRS rankings getting a first round bye and automatically advanced to the quarterfinals at SIU-Edwardsville beginning on March 3. Seeds two through eight will host a first round game with the winners advancing to Edwardsville.
You've Got To Have HART – Stephanie Hart (Geneva, Ill./Geneva) has been asked to do a variety of things for this year's team including guarding the other team's top scorer and running the point guard spot. She leads team with 11 blocked shots this season to go along with 32 assists and 13 steals. She's averaging less than one turnover per contest and is third on the team in assists behind Schmidt and
Grace Hilber (Sun Prairie, Wis./Sun Prairie).
I'll Take That – The Flyers rank third in the GLVC in conference games with 8.82 steals per contest trailing only Drury and Southern Indiana in that category. Lewis has four players ranked in the top 15 in steals in the conference with Hilber fourth with 2.09 per game while
Shawnton Brown (Joliet, Ill./Joliet Central) is at 1.55 per contest and Hart is averaging 1.5 per outing.
About Rockhurst – The Hawks enter Thursday's contest with a record of 11-9 and are 7-7 in the GLVC after their 72-40 loss at Missouri-St. Louis on Monday evening. Daly and Keegan Sullivan leads Rockhurst in scoring as the sisters account for nearly 40 percent of the team's scoring and over 20 percent of their rebounding. Daly is fourth in the conference in scoring at 16.1 points per game while Keegan is fourth in rebounding at 7.7 per contest.
About William Jewell – The Cardinals enter Thursday's game against Illinois Springfield with a record of 1-19, 0-14 in the GLVC and have lost 12 straight. WJC got off to a good start in its game against Maryville on Monday evening but couldn't maintain it in an 80-53 loss to the Saints. The Cardinals have struggled to score this season averaging less than 50 points per contest and are shooting only 35 percent from the field and 26 percent from three.
Series Stuff – Thursday's game at Rockhurst marks the 16th meeting all-time between the Flyers and Hawks with Lewis holding a 14-1 advantage in the series and have won 11 straight. The Flyers defeated Rockhurst 75-55 in Kansas City last season.
Lewis and William Jewell will meet for the 11th time on Saturday with the Flyers having won nine of the first 10 contests. The Cardinals snapped a nine-game losing streak in the series last year defeating Lewis 95-77 at Neil Carey Arena. This will be the Flyers first trip to Liberty, Mo., since the 2016-17 season.
Up Next – Lewis begins a four-game homestand next Tuesday (Feb. 15) as it hosts Missouri-St. Louis at 4:30 p.m. at Neil Carey Arena. Tuesday's game is the makeup date of the game that was postponed on Jan. 13.
