Women's Basketball clinches No. 2 seed in NAC Tournament

MILWAUKEE – Home court advantage and the Northern Athletics Conference's No. 1 overall seed was on the line Saturday afternoon, and Wisconsin Lutheran College built a double-digit lead down the stretch to defeat Concordia University Wisconsin, 81-67, at the Recreation Complex.

The victory gives WLC home court advantage in the NAC Tournament, which begins next Saturday. The Falcons earned the league's No. 2 seed in the postseason tournament, after having already clinched the outright North Division title on Tuesday.

Junior Katie Luethe (Oshkosh, Wis.) scored a team-best 15 points, while junior Camille Parsons (Urbana, Ill.) and senior Tiffany Hendrickson (Ingleside, Ill.) added 12 and 11 points, respectively.

WLC (21-2, 16-0 NAC) was led by Shavon Dillon's career-high 29 points, including 12-of-15 from the free throw line, and 10 rebounds. The win also kept the Warriors undefeated conference record alive. Kristen Schulz grabbed a game-best 12 rebounds.

The Warriors led for all but one minute and 15 seconds in the first half as they scored 14 of their 32 points in the paint. CUW (17-7, 14-3 NAC) used its harassing defense to force 13 Warrior miscues in the opening 20 minutes and converted those turnovers into 11 points.

WLC took a 32-26 lead into halftime after making 14-of-17 free throw attempts.

Alyssa Allister drained a jumper to give the Warriors an eight-point advantage in the second frame before the Falcons went on a 20-5 scoring run over the next 3:59 to take a seven-point lead. CUW went inside and forced the issue to get the free throw line for easy points. It made 7-of-7 attempts during the scoring run.

WLC slowly chipped away at its deficit behind Dillon, who tallied 18 second half points. The second half featured 10 lead changes and four scoring ties, but it was Dillon who took over down the stretch with six points from the charity stripe in the last 55 seconds.

CUW concludes the regular season on Wednesday against Alverno College at 7 p.m. inside the R. John Buuck Field House.