ST. PAUL (Feb. 19, 2008) – Put it in the books: the Northwestern College women's basketball team won its eighth outright Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) championship with a 52-35 win over Crown College. It is the Eagles 10^th conference championship overall, and the first since 2005.

 

Northwestern's defense prevented Crown from scoring their first field goal of the game until the 10:32 point in the first half, when Stephanie Schmitz made the score 8-4 in favor of the Eagles. Not long after, Northwestern went into the locker room with a 24-8 lead, marking the first time this season that they prevented an opponent from scoring 10 points in the first half.

 

The Eagles' largest lead came at 10:17 in the second half, when Rachael Bohnen (Grand Marais, MN/Cook County High School)'s (Grand Marais, Minn./Cook County) 3-pointer put Northwestern up 42-16. Soon thereafter, head coach Linda Schuck was able to play the deeper part of her bench as NWC cruised to a 52-35 final.

 

It wasn't exactly a “light 'em up” game for either team, as both Northwestern and Crown fell short of the 30 percent mark on field goal attempts. The Eagles did claim advantages on rebounds (46-34), turnovers (16-23) and second chance points (20-10) en route to the win.

 

Ariel Liesch (Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial) (Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial), who was announced earlier in the day as the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) Student-Athlete of the Week for the second consecutive week, led Northwestern with 14 points and nine rebounds. Kaelee Kendrick (Eagan, Minn./Bethany Academy) (Eagan, Minn./Bethany Academy) added seven points and six rebounds in a game where every player in an Eagles jersey saw court time.

 

Schmitz was the Storm's only threat, tallying 13 points and 15 rebounds for a double-double.

 

Northwestern (13-12, 11-3 UMAC) heads into this weekend's UMAC postseason tournament as top seed, and will host Presentation in a 6 p.m. affair on Friday in the Ericksen Center.