Box Score
CHICAGO, Ill. – Chicago State's Courtney Waldon and Tressa Beckel combined for 43 points as the Cougars won their second-straight conference game, 92-64, Thursday evening at Jacoby Dickens Center.
Waldon scored a game-high 23 points with 8-of-22 shooting, 3-of-11 from beyond the arc and a perfect 4-for-4 at the charity stripe for CSU (9-8, 2-0 GWC). Beckel finished the night with 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Waldon was tied for the team lead with seven rebounds, with Elana Wroten and Caila Desroches. Janay Dockery had 16 points, three rebounds, one block and three steals.
Destini Texada led HBU (2-14, 0-1) with 16 points and eight rebounds. Jamie Spriggs was second on the team with 14 points and six rebounds and Megan Green added 10 points and tied a season-high with three rebounds. Tia Jackson had five assists and five rebounds while scoring four points. HBU out-rebounded Chicago State, 40-39, in the game.
“Chicago State is a very good team and their defensive intensity caused a lot of issues for us tonight, but our aim is to get better every day, so we will learn from tonight and be ready for NJIT,” said head coach Mary Gleason.
“It's a disappointing start to conference play, but we did get some good play from our post players tonight. When we put a solid 40 minutes together, we will be very competitive.”
Chicago State entered the contest with the highest scoring offense, averaging 69.1 points per game and featured the league's top scorer in Beckel, who came into the game averaging 18.2 ppg.
Chicago State led 6-2 early on before a layup by Texada cut the Cougar lead to two. But CSU went on an 8-0 run to lead 14-4 with 13 minutes remaining in the opening half. A three-pointer by Green stopped the run but two minutes later, Waldon matched Green's long ball with one of her own and the Cougars led by double-digits again.
Waldon followed her three with a layup and the Cougars had their largest lead of the half, 21-9. The Huskies used a 7-0 run to cut the Cougar lead to 21-16. Texada had four points and Ernesta Griciunaite had three during the run.
The five points were the closest HBU got the remainder of the half as a layup by Dockery stopped the Husky run and CSU was 9-for-11 at the free throw line the remaining seven minutes of the first half as CSU led HBU 43-27 at the break.
Chicago State started the second half on a 9-0 run in the first four minutes to increase its lead to 54-27 before a Mele Leasau layup stopped the run.
A Caneka Davis layup at the 13-minute mark pushed the Cougar lead to 30, at 62-32. Green followed the layup with a three pointer, assisted by Brittany Barton.
The Huskies got to within 27 several times during the remaining 13 minutes of the second half but could get no closer. Green hit two three pointers during that span and three in the game to tie her season high.
The Huskies will close the road trip at NJIT on Saturday with a 1 pm CST tip-off.
