SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- The William Woods University women's basketball team concludes its two-game road trip on Tuesday night as they travel to Benedictine University at Springfield for an American Midwest Conference contest. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m.
William Woods (17-8, 10-7 AMC) will be playing its third game in five days, as they open a three-game week against a Benedictine University at Springfield (5-20, 3-14 AMC) team that has won two of its last four games to break a nine-game losing streak.
Head Coach Dan Chapla is confident that his team he will have his team ready for the three-game, five-day stretch, despite the lack of preparation time for him and his staff.
"When you look at it, we really play five games in a matter of 10 days going back to last week. When you hit stretches like this you do not have a lot of time to prepare for teams. This week we have just one day to prepare for each opponent, but fortunately for us, two of those games are at home, so we do not have to do a lot of traveling. Everyone in the conference has a week like this to get ready for, but this time of year it's not such much about preparation because we all know each other pretty well this late in the season."
WWU comes into Tuesday's contest off the heels of a 74-61 road victory at Missouri Baptist. The Owls were able to run away from the Spartans in the second half thanks to a 20-3 run that turned a two-point lead into a 19-point advantage.
Andraquay Quinnine continued her impressive play of late in the win, as she registered a game-high 20 points. It was the fourth straight double-digit scoring performance for the senior, and was the third time this season she scored over 20 points.
"She has been really good on both ends of the floor here recently," the Head Coach said of his senior. "Obviously she has been able to put the ball in the whole, but something that people don't see on the box score is the defensive side, and she has been spectacular there recently. She is a strong athlete, she can play for 40 minutes if we need her, and she is a player that teams are keying on. She struggled a bit when teams starting doing that do her earlier this year, but she has adjusted and been playing well of late."
Quinnine is averaging 16.5 points over her last three contest, and is the team's leading scorer on the year with her 12.2 points per game average.
Benedictine University at Springfield enters Tuesday's game suffering an 86-50 loss to Park University. Despite its recent loss, BenU-Springfield has collected a pair of wins in its last four contest, as they have defeated the likes of Stephens College and Mid-Continent.
"We cannot take them lightly and I've told our team that," Chapla said. "I tell our kids every day respect everybody and fear no one, and that's something we have to keep in mind on Tuesday. Benedictine is a team that hasn't won a lot of games this season, but we are going to their court and if we don't take care of business anything can happen."
Ryan Edwards' 15.2 points pet game leads a Lady Bulldogs group that is averaging 60.4 points per contest on 32.7 percent shooting. The guard has surpassed the double-digit scoring plateau in each of her last 14 contest, and in the Mid-Continent game she scored a career-high 30 points.
"She is nice player. She is capable of getting to the free throw line, and when she gets there she is hitting around 84 percent, so she makes those trips count. We did a good job on her at our place earlier this season, she had 10 points, but she has gotten a lot better since then. We will mix things up a bit and hopefully keep her in check once again."
William Woods will be going for the season sweep of Benedictine University at Springfield on Tuesday, as they defeated the Lady Bulldogs, 88-55, in Anderson Arena back on Jan. 14. Freshman Kennedy Volkart tied her career-best in points on that night with 16. Blake French also tallied double-digits in the win with 12 points.
WWU has never lost to BenU-Springfield in the team's short-lived series. The Owls are currently 3-0 against the Lady Bulldogs in a series that dates back to the 2012-13 season when Benedictine University at Springfield entered the AMC.
Check back with wwuowls.com for a full recap of this and every game during the 2013-14 season.
