The DePauw women's basketball team took the to the road for the first time in February for a matinee showing this past Saturday at Oberlin College.
The Lady Tigers enjoyed a comfortable 70-39 victory over the hosts in their third-to-last conference game of the regular season. Following the Saturday triumph, DePauw climbed the D3Hoops.com national ranking to sit at the fourth spot at the weeks end.
DePauw (21-1) roared out of the gates, took the lead and never gave it back against the Yeowomen. Oberlin was within three points with around nine minutes to play in the first half. It was the closest they would come to tying the Tiger women.
With six minutes left in the half, sophomore Ali Ross converted a three-pointer that opened the floodgates for an unprecedented 20-0 run by the Tigers to close out the half.
Oberlin failed to make the game competitive in the second half and a couple of DePauw runs closed out the game quickly and efficiently. The Tigers benefitted immensely from some big time offensive performances from sophomore Alex Gasaway, senior Katie Aldrich and junior Kathleen Molloy. The trio scored 18, 14 and 10 points, respectively.
Senior Kathryn Denbow and junior Katie Walker assisted three times each while junior Ellie Pearson grabbed eight rebounds and four steals.
Having clinched the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament last week, the Lady Tigers could relax these next two games in preparation for the upcoming NCAC tournament.
"While we know we've done well in this new conference and are happy for our success, coach doesn't want us to relax, and I certainly don't want to become complacent in what we've accomplished," Gasaway said. "What's important is what comes next, and we know the competition is going to become more and more difficult the further we get into March and we need to do whatever we can in practice to ready ourselves for that."
Pearson stressed that the team never looks past a game.
"It is rewarding to see our hard work pay off as we have secured the No. 1 seed for conference," Pearson said. "It can definitely be easy to get into the lull of winning but focusing on one thing at a time helps overcome that. We can't take winning for granted. Instead we must take it one day at a time, one practice at a time, one play at a time, one game at a time. Thinking about the past and the future are only distractions. Our day-to-day focus as a team is powerful enough to prevent us from relaxing against opponents."
The Lady Tigers play their last final home game of the regular season this Wednesday at 6 p.m at Neal Fieldhouse.