Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
The road back to the NCAA Tournament began Tuesday night for the Wright State University women’s basketball program.
A year after winning a school-record 27 games, the young Raiders must navigate their way through the Horizon League tournament to get back to the big dance.
The third-seeded Raiders (19-11) got off to a great start Tuesday night, cruising to an 83-47 victory over No. 10 UIC in a Horizon League tournament first-round game on Tuesday night at the Nutter Center.
Senior Michal Miller had a game-high 16 points and sophomore Angel Baker added 10 points and five assists in the victory. Horizon League Freshman of the Year Shamarre Hale had 10 points and eight rebounds, while junior Tyler Frierson had nine points and seven rebounds.
Wright State won its fifth straight game overall and its 17th straight over the Flames, a streak that began in 2013. The Raiders caused 20 turnovers and outrebounded the Flames 50-36 — two areas that led to a combined 48 points.
“We obviously started pretty slow,” said Wright State coach Katrina Merriweather. “A lot of credit goes to our second five. They came in, got us rolling offensively, got some key stops. The first five came back in and they were refocused. We were able to pull away in the second half, mainly behind our defense and rebounding.”
The Raiders finished the regular season 13-5 in the Horizon League, tied with Green Bay for second in the conference standings. The Raiders were seeded third based on conference tiebreakers, missing out on the coveted double-bye awarded to the top-two teams in the standings at the end of the regular season.
