Tiger women open tourney with victory

Monday, December 16, 2019

WHITTIER, Calif. – The eighth-ranked DePauw women’s basketball team trailed by six points late in the third, but the Tigers closed the quarter on a 5-0 run and opened the fourth with six straight to take the lead for good in a 72-62 win over Chapman in a game played at Whittier College on Sunday.

DePauw improved to 9-1, while the Panthers moved to 4-3.

In a back-and-forth opening quarter DePauw overcame a three-point deficit to take a 25-21 lead at the break. The Tigers extended it to as many as seven points in the second before grabbing a 41-35 halftime advantage.

That lead quickly reached nine at 44-35 after Claire Keefe’s layup with 8:29 left in the third, but the Tigers were scoreless for nearly seven minutes as they missed 10 field goal tries and Chapman scored 15 straight to take a 50-44 lead with 1:38 remaining in the stanza. Mya Shannon and Hayle Cange hit buckets to close the Panthers’ lead to 50-49 as the teams headed to the fourth.

Shannon buried a 3-pointer on DePauw’s first possession of the fourth before Sydney Kopp made a layup and Claire Keefe a free throw with 8:22 left to give the Tigers a 55-50 lead.

Lucy Criswell responded with a trey, but Shannon came right back with a jumper that started a 6-0 run to make it 61-53.

The Panther’s Marissa Dunn and Criswell followed with threes to trim the DePauw lead to 61-59 with 4:19 left. Kopp came right back with a basket and later hit a free throw to push the lead to 64-59. The Panthers made it 64-61 with 2:11 left on Julia Strand’s layup, but DePauw closed the game on an 8-1 run that began with Kopp’s basket and ended with six free throws over the final 32 seconds.

Kopp paced DePauw with 21 points, while Keefe followed with 19 and Shannon 15. Cange grabbed nine rebounds as the Tigers held a 31-29 edge on the boards. Strand led Chapman with 17 points and nine rebounds with Criswell adding 15 and Dunn 10.

DePauw shot 44.6 percent from the field to Chapman’s 44.2 percent and the Tigers committed 15 turnovers to the Panthers’ 20.

The Tigers faced host Whittier at 10 p.m. PST on Monday in the final game of the Holiday Inn La Miranda Purple and Gold Poet Classic.