Story by Ashley Beall
Photo by Joel Venzke
It was a record-setting afternoon for the Drake women’s basketball team on Sunday in a 97-77 win over Bradley.
The Bulldogs set a new school record by sinking 17 3-pointers and also scoring a season-high 97 points. The Bulldogs are now 8-11 and 2-6 in conference play.
Freshman Lizzy Wendell stepped up for the Bulldogs and scored a career-high of 29 points along with five assists and five steals.
“With Lizzy being able to start the way that she started today, they’re coming in the game and they’re going to key completely in on Kyndal (Clark), so when other players can really step up that’s going to open up a lot of other things and I thought Lizzy did a great job today of doing that,” said Drake head coach Jennie Baranczyk in a Drake athletics press release.
Clark scored 17 points and continued her hot streak from the Bulldog’s previous game against Loyola and has scored 15 3-pointers in the last two games.
Freshman Caitlin Ingle also had a stand-out game with a double-double with 16 points and 10 assists. This was Ingle’s second time starting for the Bulldogs as she continued her hot streak from the previous game and now has 18 assists and only two turnovers from the past two games.
“The confidence that these two young women (Wendell and Clark) have had in the last two games — you know we lost a tough one on Friday — but to be able to bounce back from that tough loss and to be able to prepare on Saturday and come in the way we did today, that’s maturity,” Baranczyk said.
“That’s something that these two here, along with Caitlin Ingle, they’re able to be the corner of what this team is going to be and what we’re going to continue to be about.”
Redshirt sophomore Fantasia Vine scored 18 points for the Braves and senior Kelly Frings had 17 points. The Braves are now 4-14 overall and 1-6 in the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Bulldogs came out strong against the Braves and went on a 19-2 scoring run in the middle of the first half and pulled away from the Braves 31-20. During the first half, Wendell and Ingle led the Bulldogs with 17 and 11 points respectively.
Drake only had eight turnovers throughout the game and made opportunities from Bradley’s 16 turnovers and scored 32 points off of them.
“Some of those turnovers are turnovers that are OK because we’re trying to do things, and we’re trying to make reads, and that was a little bit different than our turnovers in the last game where we were a little more indecisive. We had travels or we tried to create things that weren’t there,” Baranczyk said. “Today they were there, and we just had a turnover. So when you can do that, that’s where all of a sudden your turnovers are going to go down, and I can appreciate that a lot more than our indecisiveness.”
The Bulldogs head to Northern Iowa this Sunday and will return to the Knapp on Feb. 14 to play Wichita State.
