Fast-paced offense and lock down defense allowed the DePauw women's basketball team to continue to dominate NCAC competition as they closed out their regular season with a 51-31 victory away against the College of Wooster Saturday.
The win marks DePauw's 24th conference victory and its 5th undefeated conference season in 15 seasons.
DePauw has now completed its first regular season in the NCAC, going 16-0 and thoroughly dominating the competition. The win at Wooster also marks the 7th time DePauw has held its opponent to under 40 points.
The Tigers now improve to 23-1, while the Fighting Scots dropped to 3-21 on the season. Wooster's 31 points mark the lowest amount scored by an opponent against DePauw this season.
The game proved to be a mismatch from the tip-off and was quickly under Tiger control as they pounced out to an 11-2 lead in just the first six minutes. The Scots did all they could to remain relevant during the first half and retreated to the locker rooms down just 11 points, the score 22-11.
Unfortunately for the Scots, their deficit would never drop below double digits as the Tigers stopped numerous offense attacks. Sophomores Ali Ross and Alex Gasaway both notched 12 points for DePauw, with Ross adding 3 assists. Senior Kate Aldrich nearly racked up her second double-double of the week with a nine point, 10 rebound performance.
DePauw, currently ranked fourth in the nation according to D3Hoops.com prolonged its current win streak to 22 games and hopes to take its momentum into the first game of the NCAC conference tournament tonight against Oberlin College. The number one seed guarantees the team home court for the remainder of the conference tournament.
"We know that every team is going to give us their best go," Aldrich said. "So we have to come out and be more aggressive than them and we want to own the game from the tip."
With such an impressive season and national ranking, the Tigers are sure to make the Div. III NCAA tournament regardless of the outcome from the NCAC conference tournament. But the team is still taking its goals one step at a time.
"Our goal is definitely to win the conference tournament," Aldrich said. "We have tomorrow against Oberlin and I think we just want to send a message to this conference that we deserve to have this championship and we deserve to gone to the NCAAs."
The Tigers will begin conference play Tuesday night at home against Oberlin.
"We're really hoping there is going to be a big crowd the next few days," Aldrich said. "It's exciting to happen at home where we think we play really well and we have good support and it will be a great atmosphere."
The Tigers begin their journey towards the conference championship and NCAA tournament tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Neal Fieldhouse.