River Forest, Ill. - The Concordia University Chicago (CUC) Cougars defended their homecourt where they not only hosted Northern Athletic Collegiate Conference (NACC) opponent the Alverno Inferno, they also celebrated their lone senior, Alisyn MacGregor (Loves Park, Ill.) who broke an 18-year old school rebounding record with the final score at 86-41.
Inside the Box Score:
MacGregor led the Cougars with a double-double with 14 points and 14 rebounds.
Khaliah Reid (Naperville, Ill.) and Aniyah Hinton-Henry (Gary, Ind.) contributed 15 and 14 points respectively.
Sydney Nimsakont (Glendale Heights, Ill.) and Courtneye Schneider (Plainfield, Ill.) were the last two Cougars in double digits with 11 points each.
Here's What Happened
Quarter One
The Cougars wasted no time putting themselves on the scoreboard, where they found an early 4-0 lead by the veterans of the team, Mikalah Ellis and MacGregor.
From there, the Cougars and the Inferno played a little bit of back and forth play where the Inferno found themselves back within one where the score was 9-10, favoring the Cougars. The Cougars took a timeout to regroup, unhappy with the slight Inferno comeback. Out of timeout, the Cougars went on an 11-0 run to end the quarter. In this dominating run, the Cougars highlighted a jumper from Hannah Lopez (Chicago, Ill.), fast break layup off of a steal from Grace King (Fairland, Ind.), putback layup by MacGregor, three-pointer from Reid, and putback layup from King.
Going into the second quarter, the score was 21-9, favoring the Cougars.
Quarter Two
Alverno struck first in the second quarter but it didn't take long for the Cougars to strike back with a 12 point run where the Cougars shared the wealth with buckets from Nimsakont, Schneider, Ellis, and Reid.
With the score at 39-14, the Cougars found themselves in a comfortable lead. With three and a half minutes remaining, the two teams exchanged baskets until the end of the half. Heading into halftime, the Cougars had a 25 point lead, where the score was 45-20.
Quarter Three
The Cougars opened the third quarter with yet another 12-point run, with dominating efforts and buckets from Hinton-Henry and MacGregor.
Halfway through the quarter, the Inferno scored their first points of the half, however the Cougar dominance continued on. A major highlight with just under two minutes to go, MacGregor broke the women's basketball record for rebounds with her 901st career rebounds.
With a score of 64-26, Cougars, Alverno had the last point to end the quarter, bringing their total score to 28, but still trailing heading into the fourth and final quarter.
Quarter Four
The Inferno carried a little bit of that momentum into the fourth quarter where they scored consecutively with a free throw followed by a three. Reid, Schneider, and Hinton-Henry replied with buckets of their own, bringing the score to 72-32. The Cougars only allowed nine more points for the Inferno and came out on top with a final score of 86-41.
What's Next
The Cougars will be back at home Monday, February 8th, for the rescheduled Rockford game. Be sure to pack the stands for a huge conference game, where the Cougars will also be celebrating National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Coverage for all things CUC women's basketball can be found at cucougars.com/coverage.
