by By Ted Schultz, Grinnell Athletics
GRINNELL, Iowa – The home court has been much to the liking of the Grinnell College women’s basketball team in recent years, and Wednesday night was a perfect display.
The Pioneers posted one of their biggest victories of the season, knocking out Monmouth College 66-59 at Darby Gymnasium. The Pioneers have dominated the series at home against the Fighting Scots, winning for the sixth consecutive time against them at Darby.
Grinnell improved to 5-2 at home this season and won its fourth consecutive game for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign. Both teams are tied for third place in the Midwest Conference standings with 3-2 marks. Grinnell is 7-5 overall and the Fighting Scots moved to 8-4.
Tyria Heath ‘(Mohican/Menominee), recently named to the D3hoops.com Team of the Week, continued her torrid pace this season with a game-high 28 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field. She also grabbed eight rebounds, as did Kathryn Stender ’21.
Stender added a career-best three blocks, while Ellie Gubbrud ’22 had two blocks plus nine points. Sofia Ahooja ’22 came up with 11 points and three assists.
The Pioneers fell behind 5-1, but then flexed their muscles with a six-point run as Gubbrud made a close-range basket and Heath two layups for a 7-5 edge. Later, leading by a point, Grinnell ended the first period with a flurry as Kate Tomczik ’22 made two free throws and Ahooja drained a running half-court 3-pointer as time expired to send the Pioneer faithful into a frenzy with a 17-11 lead.
Grinnell kept it up in the second period, maintaining and building its lead. A 3-pointer late in the half by Stender put the Pioneers up 35-23 at intermission.
The Pioneers kept it up in the third quarter, stretching the cushion to 18 points when Stephany Dos Santos ’21 scored from close range with 48 seconds left. Monmouth finished off the period with a four-point run to make it a 51-37 Grinnell lead entering the final frame.
Grinnell maintained command the remainder of the game, though the Fighting Scots made things interesting when they sliced the gap to five points with 33 seconds left. However, Grinnell’s Emmy Nyquist ’23 sank two clutch free throws 4 seconds later to help preserve the victory.
During the game, Heath jumped up in three career categories on the Pioneers’ all-time chart. She is now 13th in career field goals with 310, 15th in points with 829 and 19th in steals with 83.
