Box Score

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Davenport got 21 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals from freshman Abbey Hengesbach as she lifted the No. 6 Lady Panthers into the WHAC Semifinals on Saturday with a 70-50 win over Indiana Tech.  Davenport, now 27-4 on the year, will host the fourth seed Siena Heights at 1:00pm.

Abbey Hengesbach was a perfect 9-9 from the field and filled the stat sheet to help Davenport advance to their 7^th straight WHAC semifinal with the 20 point win over the visiting Warriors.  Seniors Karlee Despres and Abby Neff finished with 14 and 10 points respectively as the Lady Panthers turned a six point lead at the break into a rout.

The Warriors (14-17) came out on fire scoring five of the first seven points but DU used a 9-0 run to take an 11-5 lead highlighted by seven points from Hengesbach.  The Lady Panthers held a lead between two and nine points for the remainder of the half and led 32-26 at the break.  Both teams struggled in the opening 20 minutes as DU shot 38.2% and Indiana Tech 38.5%.  The teams combined for 18 turnovers during that same time frame.

The score remained close for the first 4:57 of the second half until DU went on an 11-2 run to open a 13 point margin.  DU got buckets from four different players including Hengesbach, Karlee Despres, Alison Bouman and Abby Neff. The lead continued to grow for DU as they held their largest margin of 23 with 4:00 to play after an Emily Nielsen free-throw.  Davenport outscored the Warriors 38-24 in the second half for the comfortable 20 point win.

Post-Game Quotes – Head Coach Mike Williams and junior Karli Harris

Williams on the play of Indiana Tech: "Indiana Tech is a really good team because of their athleticism and on the defensive end they play with a lot of intensity. I thought the first half was the best defense I had seen Tech all season and Abbey Hengesbach was able to hit some big shots in the first half or else I think we may have been down heading into halftime."
 
Williams on improvements heading into Saturday against Siena Heights: "Shooting...we need to make some shots. We have proven that we are a good shooting team on the road and we just need to figure that out on our home court."
 
Harris on key factor in tonight's victory: "Coming out in the second half we really turned up our defensive intensity in the full court which allowed us to force more turnovers and put them in position to take bad shots." 


Post - Game Notes

Davenport is now 18-1 all-time against Indiana Tech and has won 17 straight in the series…Abbey Hengesbach set a Student Center record for FG% by making all 9 of her field goals…DU, who has been in the league since 2005-06, has never failed to make at least the semifinals


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