The Carthage College women's basketball team (19-6, 10-4 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) completed its regular-season schedule with a 53-44 victory over CCIW-opponent Augustana College (Ill., 11-13, 3-10 CCIW) on Saturday, Feb. 18 at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis.
 
Carthage held Augustana to three field goals during the first half, en route to a 30-12 lead.  Nine of the 11 players Carthage used during the first half scored.  Carthage scored the first 12 points on two-point baskets by Diana Jacklin, Cailee Corcoran and Stephanie Kuzmanic, and three-pointers by Dani Ripkey and Haley Stercic.  Augustana's first point came on a free throw by Jessica Baids with 11:29 to play to make it 12-1.  Baskets by Kiki Phillips, Gabby Chapa and Michelle Wenzel gave Carthage a 20-5 lead.  Amy Hicks made Augustana's first basket (in 13 attempts) to bring the Vikings within 22-7.  A basket by Cory Bazany gave the Lady Reds a 27-9 bulge with 2:18 to go in the half.
 
The Vikings made just three-of-20 field goal attempts (15 percent) in the first half and committed 14 turnovers, while the Lady Reds shot 13-of-30 (43 percent).  Carthage had a lead of 18 points six times, the last on a basket by Corcoran that made it 40-22 with 11:28 left in the game.  Allison Groessl became the 10th Lady Red to score when she made two free throws to give Carthage a 44-29 lead with 7:53 to play.  Augustana closed the game on a 10-4 run for the final, 53-44 margin.
 
Dani Ripkey (Sr., Deerfield, Ill.) led Carthage with 10 points.  She made two three-point baskets in nine tries, leaving her one shy of tying the career school record of 177 set by Angela Beyer (2001-04).  Haley Stercic (So., Chicago, Marist) finished with a trio of three-point baskets for nine points, and Diana Jacklin (Sr., Berwyn, Ill./Morton West) had 11 rebounds.   Augustana finished with just a 23.5 percent shooting percentage (12-51).  That gave the Lady Reds a CCIW record for lowest field-goal percentage defense in a season at 31.8 percent.  The old record of 33.7 percent was set by Carthage in 2002.  Through games of Feb. 16, Carthage was tied with three others for 32nd in the country in field goal percentage defense at 33.2 percent.
 
“I thought we made it hard for them to score (during the first half),” said Carthage coach Tim Bernero.  “They made three baskets the whole half."  Bernero has noticed opponents are being more physical on defense. “People are getting into us a little bit defensively, and we've got to handle it better,” Bernero said.  “We have to be able to execute what we want, when we want.  We didn't get to do that.  We didn't do a great job in the first half, and it was worse in the second half.  They dictated and kind of took us out of our offense.  We weren't as dominant as we were Wednesday (in a 72-56 victory at Elmhurst) as far as getting the ball inside and getting the ball where we wanted it to go.  Everything was kind of a half-second late or a little bit off center.  Give Augustana credit for that, but we can't let that happen.  We needed to execute a little bit better offensively and that would have put the game away, especially when it was 30-12 at halftime.  We got the result, we didn't like how we got to the result.”
 
Haley Stercic's shooting was one of the Lady Reds' offensive highlights.  “She was the other shooter out there, and Dani Ripkey wasn't able to shoot it as well,” Bernero said.  “Haley was able to make shots that came her way.  She's capable of doing that.  She might have been the only one we had who seemed in the rhythm of things offensively.  People have just decided they're going to physically handle us, and we've got to be able to adapt and handle that as a unit, not just one-on-one hand fights.”
 
The third-seeded Lady Reds open play at the CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament against second-seeded Wheaton College (Ill., currently 17-7, 10-3 CCIW) on Friday, Feb. 24 in 5 p.m. semifinal game at the Illinois Wesleyan University Shirk Center in Bloomington, Ill.  Top-seeded Illinois Wesleyan (20-5, 13-1 CCIW) plays fourth-seeded Millikin (15-10, 7-7 CCIW) in the other semifinal contest, beginning at 7 p.m.