COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The William Woods University women's basketball team had 15 players score on the afternoon, as an 18-2 first half run helps the Owls pick up the 82-46 victory at Stephens College on Saturday afternoon.
It was the third straight game that William Woods (12-5; 5-4 AMC) had at least nine players make an appearance in the scoring column, as they wrapped up its two-game American Midwest Conference road trip a perfect 2-0, to move over the .500 mark in league play for the first time this season.
"I thought our team displayed a tremendous amount of teamwork today," said Head Coach Dan Chapla. "It was nice that we got to play everyone, as we shared the ball extremely well. Our girls are playing with a lot of confidence right now and played hard for 40 minutes this afternoon. Our starters came out and got the job done early on, which allowed everyone to play."
William Woods had all 16 players play on the afternoon, with a season-high 15 scoring. The Owls held an amazing 49-0 edge in points off the bench.
Freshman Kennedy Volkart, who was making her third career start, led the charge for William Woods with 13 points. The 6-2 forward has now collected four double-figure scoring performances over her last five games.
"She keeps getting better every game," Chapla said of his freshman. "She is gaining confidence with every game. She hit a couple of 10-to-15 footers, which is something we knew she could do coming in. We are happy to see her development over the last few games, but she still has a lot of room to get better."
Volkart also led the team in rebounding, as she collected six caroms on the afternoon.
Andraquay Quinnine as the only other Owls player in double-digits, as the AMC's leading three-point shooter hit three first half trifectas to add to her AMC-leading 42 three-pointers.
Saturday also marked the fourth straight game that the Owls have scored over 80 points in a contest. It is the first time under Coach Chapla that WWU has achieved that feat. The streak looked to be in danger in the closing second, but sophomore Kendra Vernatti's three-pointer at the buzzer kept the trend alive.
"We've been scoring it well as a team all year," Chapla said. "But right now, our issues are on the defensive end. Offensively, we shared the ball today, we had 21 assists so it's good that we are scoring the ball and doing it in an unselfish way."
Defensively, the Owls held Stephens College (0-14; 0-8 AMC) to 46 points on just 26.9 percent from the field. It was the first time in four games that WWU has held an opponent under 50 points in a contest, and just the third time they held an opponent under 50 all season.
"We still need to get better on that end of the floor," Chapla explained. "We did a better job today, Stephens has an outstanding guard (Seleena Neal), who is very athletic and she made a couple of great plays against us, and we need to fix that up a bit."
Neal led the way for the Stars, as the guard scored a game-high 24 points on 7-of-17 from the floor.
It was a tight contest over the game's first four minutes, as it was tied at 10-10. A quick 5-0 run by WWU gave them a five-point lead, but Stephens College responded with a 6-0 spurt of its own to take a 16-15 lead with 11:45 remaining in the frame.
Back-to-back Quinnine three-pointers ended the Stephens' run and sparked an 11-0 run for William Woods to take a 26-16 lead. Neal ended the SC drought after a timeout, but WWU scored the next eight points to extend its run to 18-2, as they built a 33-18 advantage.
Neal's personal 5-0 run brought Stephens back to within 10 points, but the Owls ended the half by scoring nine of the frame's final 11 points to take the 42-25 lead at halftime.
William Woods opened the second half on a 16-3 run, capped off by a Scherder lay up to build a 30-point lead.
The Stars would cut the deficit under 30 a couple of times, but the Owls would maintain its 30-point advantage for the remainder for most of the second frame, as they collected the 82-46 win.
William Woods returns to action next Thursday, as they return to Anderson Arena to entertain Hannibal-LaGrange University. Tip-off for this AMC contest is set for 5:30 p.m.
Check back with wwuowls.com for a full preview and recap of this and every game during the 2013-14 season.
