Cougars Women’s Basketball beats Olivet Nazarene in Exhibition play

Alex Staab – ICC Harbinger

East Peoria, IL – Basketball season doesn’t officially start until November 3rd for the ICC Cougars Women’s Basketball team, but they are in the home stretch of the preseason exhibition games, wrapping up the home preseason slate with Olivet Nazarene University Wednesday night in front of a full house at Ramsey Gym.

Things got off to a good start for the visiting Tigers, forcing an ICC timeout, followed by the Cougars reaching the bonus, giving Olivet free throws and a 18-14 lead over ICC with about three minutes left in the opening quarter. The Cougars would find a way to turn it around, outscoring Olivet through the end of the first quarter, 12-6, and giving the hosts a 26-24 lead after one quarter of play.

ICC got off to a great start in the second quarter, going on a 7-0 run to take a 33-24 lead just two minutes into the second frame. From that point, Olivet actually had the advantage, but it didn’t help, as ICC had a 52-45 lead headed into the halftime locker room.

The biggest quarter for the Cougars was the third, but it didn’t start out that way. A quick run by the Tigers had ICC taking a timeout, only up 56-53. That was with 7:47 left in the third. The rest of the quarter, points came flying in. After the timeout and through the end of the third, ICC outscored Olivet 34-18. The Cougars would have 38 total points that quarter to Olivet’s 26. ICC led 90-71 with ten minutes still left to play.

A fairly even fourth quarter in regards to points kept the ICC lead where it needed to be. Although Olivet outscored the Cougars in the fourth quarter, the Cougars still came out on top, 116-99. Isreal Evans (So. – Peoria HS) led the Cougars with 21 points. Bailey Larsen (So. – U-High) was right behind Evans, tallying 20 points.

The next set of games for ICC is this Sunday, as they travel down to Belleville, Illinois to participate in the Southwestern Illinois Jamboree. The next Women’s Basketball home game is Wednesday, November 29th, against the Golden Eagles of Rock Valley.

Cougar Scorers
Isreal Evans | 21
Bailey Larsen | 20
Krystal Walker | 18
Madison Faulkner | 15
Jasmine Levy | 14
Abby Coates | 12
Kellyn Maynard | 10
Kathy Pinnock-Branford | 4
Aubrey Magro | 1
Sia Williams | 1
Cougars Team Statistics
46 2’s | 3 3’s | 15-20 free throws | 27 fouls | 116 points

Team Twitter: @ICC_CougarsWBB | Harbinger Sports Twitter: @ICCSportsLive | Alex Staab: @StaabAlex