Wright State’s women’s basketball team (17-5; HL 9-1) extended their win streak to nine after beating the Oakland Golden Grizzlies (11-10; HL 5-5) 84-66 on Sunday, Jan 29, in the Nutter Center.
The Lady Raiders finish the month of January undefeated and a game behind Green Bay for first place in the Horizon League.
In this match up against Oakland, Wright State started off hot shooting 52 percent from the field.
Their defense held up as well, holding the Golden Grizzlies 35 percent shooting and forcing six Oakland turnovers.
The 25 point outburst that the Raiders had in the first quarter would prove to be their best as the next three quarters would prove to be much tougher.
The Oakland Golden Grizzlies would fight back in the second and third quarter cutting a Wright State lead that was once as large as 24, early in the third, to 10 to start the final period.
Yet after going up big, Chelsea Welch, who led the way for Wright State with 24 points, expected Oakland to claw their way back.
“We knew they were going to come out really strong and like I said they’re a great team,” the Lady Raiders leading scorer said. “So they are going to have their runs, as we had our runs.”
Wright State would go on one final run, showing the dominance that they had shown in the first quarter.
Welch alongside teammate Lexi Smith would combine for 10 of Wright State’s 19 fourth quarter points as they closed the Golden Grizzlies, and capturing the 18 point win.
Smith who finished the game recording her 8th double-double (20 points and 11 rebounds) felt strongly about the contributions that her and Welch have made in the game and throughout the season.
“(The stats) does contribute a lot,” Smith said. “I guess when we start the game we don’t think about scoring a lot, I think it’s more unintentional. We just let it come to us. We just try to help as much as possible.”
Outside of Smith and Welch, sophomores, Emily Vogelpohl and Mackenzie Taylor both chipped in with 14 and 15 points respectively.
The first game of February will come at home against Northern Kentucky (7-15, HL 3-7) on Saturday, Feb 4, at 4:30 p.m.
