The Lawrence University women’s basketball team swept their weekend pair of games and won again last Tuesday to move into a tie with Ripon for first place in the Midwest Conference. The Vikings defeated Illinois College 79-56, Knox 72-45, and Carroll 52-43.
In the game against Illinois College, Felicita Porrata became the first Lawrence women’s player even to record 1000 points and 500 rebounds in a career. She needed six points going into the game, and easily picked them up. She would finish with 15 points for the game, three behind team leader Claire Getzoff, who had 18. The game was never in question. LU dominated from the opening tip and held a 38-27 advantage at the half. It was their seventh straight victory against the Lady Blues.
Saturday against Knox was much of the same for the Vikings. They jumped out early, and ran away with the game. Knox never had a lead in this one, as the Vikings kept building up their lead the entire first half to take a large 46-21 advantage at the half. The Vikings got to play their entire bench in this game, and they were led in scoring by Getzoff once again, with 19. Jenny Stoner was the only other Viking in double figures, with 10. Fifteen different players scored for the Vikings.
Tuesday night the Vikings had a tough test with Carroll at home. The Pioneers had defeated Lake Forest (a contender for the MWC title) at home the previous weekend and would be in a tie for second place if they won. However, LU spoiled their plans.
For the first half, bad shooting plagued both teams. The Vikings opened the scoring with Getzoff’s three-pointer, and would hold the lead, which at its peak reached eight points, the entire first half. The lead was trimmed to six at the half, to 24-18. The Vikings only shot 25.8 percent in the first half, with Carroll just behind them at 25 percent even.
The second half started out well for the Pioneers who got hot and went on a 7-0 run to take what would be their only lead of the game at 25-24. The Vikings pushed ahead, and with a 34-31 lead would go on an 8-0 run to put the Pioneers away for good. The Vikings would only shoot 28 percent for the game, but it would be good enough for an ugly 52-43 win. Getzoff once again lead all scorers with 15, and Porrata added 13 points and 13 rebounds.
Getzoff is the next Viking to near the 1000-point club. Currently only three players have reached that threshold. Sarah O’Neil is the all-time leading scorer for LU women’s basketball with 1,225 points. Jackie Huss, a current LU assistant coach, is second on that list with 1,105. Current LU senior Porrata is the third member, having broken the 1,000-point barrier last Friday. She now has 1,026 and is on a quest to catch Huss, and possibly O’Neil, by then end of the season.
Getzoff, however, will catch them all easily, barring any severe injury, by the time she is done. The junior has now 994 career points, and will go over the 1000 mark in the Vikings game at Grinnell this Friday night. With a season and a half to go, she will easily overtake the three girls ahead of her as the highest Vikings scorer ever. The Vikings play at Grinnell for the opening of their new Darby Gymnasium tonight at 5:30. They then travel to Lake Forest to take on the Foresters at 2, tomorrow afternoon.
Vikes move into a tie for first place -jcr -dlh
