WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Virginia Wesleyan women’s basketball team defeated the Wheeling Cardinals on the road 58-55 on Wednesday night. The Cardinals shot just 9-25 from the free throw line in the loss.

The Cardinals struck first with a Lauren Calhoun layup, getting the fourth leading scorer in the MEC started early. Courtney Wilfong got warmed up early, making a layup and hitting a three to score five quick points. The Lady Bobcats stayed afloat, trailing 18-12 at the end of the opening quarter.

The Lady Bobcats opened the second quarter on a 9-2 run, taking their first lead of the game at 21-20. In the run, Emma Witt connected on three layups and Electra Allembert connected on a straightaway three. Allembert continued her hot first half, hitting another jumper to give her 11 points in the half. Witt’s layup with a little over a minute left gave Wesleyan their biggest lead of the game at 29-21. Witt scored 10 points in the first half to help the Lady Bobcats take a 31-25 lead into the break.

Allembert started right where she left off before halftime, knocking down a smooth jumper from mid-range. The Cardinals cut the lead back down to two but Witt hit yet another pair of layups to keep the lead for Wesleyan. Wheeling snuck a layup in at the buzzer to end the quarter, narrowing the Wesleyan lead to 42-40 going into the fourth quarter.

Calhoun hit a layup to tie the game at 42 for Wheeling in the opening seconds of the quarter. M’laya Aisworth connected from three for her first points of the night and Daveona Hatchell connected on a jumper on consecutive buckets for WVWC to take back the lead. The Cardinals got back up with a Carla Torrubia layup through a double-team. Shelby Genes answered the Wheeling bucket with a backdoor cut and layup.

The two teams exchanged layups for a couple minutes until a Genes three put the Lady Bobcats back up 56-55 with 59 seconds to go. A massive block from Cierra Tolbert hit off of Calhoun to give WVWC the ball back, forcing Wheeling to foul Wilfong, where she would knock down both free throws to make it 58-55 with 14.8 seconds left. Wheeling got a chance to tie it but the Lady Bobcats would foul on the floor, only leaving .4 seconds left for the Cardinals. WU wasn’t able to get a final shot off after Wilfong deflected the inbounds pass to end the game.

Calhoun led the Cardinals with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Jacqui Hinesmon chimed in 10 points in the loss.

Wilfong and Witt both scored 15 points for the Lady Bobcats, with Witt shooting 7-11 from the field. Allembert had a season-high 13 points and also grabbed six rebounds in the win.

Wesleyan returns home to face West Liberty on Saturday afternoon inside Rockefeller Center at 2 p.m.

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