KENOSHA, Wis. – A shorthanded Carthage College Lady Reds basketball team dropped their final home contest of the season Saturday, February 13th, as Wheaton College came in and earned a 79-49 win at Tarble Arena.
 
Carthage, who was with out seniors Erin Thomas and Gracie Sanchez as well as sophomore Morgan Harris, all due to injuries, dropped to 9-15 on the season and 5-7 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, while Wheaton improves to 18-5, 10-3 in the CCIW.
 
"It was a bad matchup to go into being shorthanded like we are right now," said head coach Tim Bernero.  "I didn't think with what we had available we could have played them man-to-man for 40 minutes so we tried to zone them, hoping it would slowdown [Katie] McDaniels a little bit, knowing that we had to get to [Chantal] Meachum and we didn't get to her.  She was the one kid that could really hurt us out there and she did today.  I thought we had that figured out but we kept leaving her and she is the type of kid that can hurt you."
 
Prior to the game Sanchez and Thomas were both recognized during the senior day ceremony.
 
Bailey Gilbert led the Lady Reds with 16 points with Rachel Szydlowski and Morgan Vukovich adding 11 and 10 respectively.
 
Carthage opened the game grabbing an early lead and eventually going up by as many as four in the quarter.  However, the Thunder would eventually find their shooting stroke in the quarter and take control of the quarter, leading 21-13 after the opening 10 minutes, despite seven points in the quarter by Szydlowski.
 
Wheaton would continue to push their lead, eventually to 12 at the break, despite nearly identical shooting percentages from the field after the first 20 minutes, as Carthage shot 43.5-percent to Wheaton's 43.8-percent on field goals. 
 
In the second half, impressive three-point shooting ended any hopes of a comeback for the Lady Reds as the Thunder went 8-of-16 from deep over the final 20 minutes, including five-of-nine from Wheaton guard Chantal Meachum.  Meachum finished with a game high 26 points.
 
The Lady Reds season concludes a week from Saturday, as Carthage hits the road for the season finale at Millikin University, Saturday, February 20th at 5:00 PM.
 
Looking ahead to Millikin Bernero said, "We are in survival mode right now.  We have to be wise with how we work this week and that we get enough conditioning in so we can play the game next Saturday.  We will prepare normally but we need to be cautious that we don't deplete our self anymore.  It has been a weird situation but we are where we are and we have to manage it to get through one more game to get to next season."