CHICAGO—The Carthage College women's basketball team traveled to North Park University for the first of a three-game road swing to end the 2016-17 regular season. The Lady Reds, who entered Wednesday's bout two and a half games back from Augustana College (Ill.) for the final CCIW Tournament spot, were in pursuit of their first road victory of the season.
 
A fast start helped Carthage maintain the lead from beginning to end in a 65-54 victory over the Vikings. The Lady Reds improve to 13-10, 7-7 CCIW while North Park falls to 11-13, 4-11 CCIW.
 
The win puts Carthage two games back from Augustana (Ill.), who didn't play on Wednesday night.
 
Lady Reds 65, North Park 54
 
Morgan Harris and Autumn Kalis each notched a three-pointer to help Carthage come out of the gates with a 10-4 advantage with 4:09 left in the first quarter. Mandy Hozzian executed on a steal and offensive board, and turned each of those into layups to push the Lady Reds' lead to 12-4 with 3:08 remaining in the opening frame.
 
Carthage took a 14-7 lead into the second quarter, where they came out firing on all cylinders. Maggie Berigan's four points powered a Lady Red 9-0 run that widened their lead to 23-7 at the 7:01 mark of the second quarter. This provoked North Park head coach Amanda Crockett to burn a timeout.
 
The breather helped North Park as they outscored Carthage 9-7 the remainder of the second quarter to narrow their deficit to 30-16. The second frame ended in a Harris layup with 0:05 on the clock.
 
North Park tallied seven of their 20 third-quarter points from the charity stripe, but couldn't gain an edge as Carthage held onto a 49-36 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.
 
Six Viking second-chance points helped narrow their deficit to 60-49 with 4:05 remaining in the fourth quarter. However, the Lady Reds were able to maintain that 11-point cushion in a 65-54 win over North Park University.
 
Bailey Gilbert (13), Harris (11), Berigan (10) and Morgan Vukovich (10) make up the four Lady Reds who reached double figure scoring. Berigan added three blocks and nine boards to her stat line.
 
The Lady Reds will return to action on Saturday, February 18 at Millikin University. Game time is set for 5:00 p.m.