Oakland takes two from UIC
The Oakland University women’s basketball team opened up Horizon League play with a pair of wins over Illinois-Chicago this weekend.
On Saturday, the Grizzlies edged the Flames 76-70. They then followed that up with a dominant 81-55 victory on Sunday at O’Rena.
In Saturday’s victory, the Grizzlies trailed the Flames 68- 67 with 1:42 to play, but a 3-pointer from senior Jalisha Terry with 45 seconds remaining gave Oakland the lead for good. Terry would add a pair of free throws down the stretch, while junior Kahlaijah Dean would knock down four from the line as well to seal up the victory.
Terry scored all 13 of her points in the fourth.
Dean finished with a gamehigh 28 points to go along with eight rebounds, five assists and four steals. Dean led the early surge, with Oakland establishing a 22-14 lead after the first quarter thanks to 12 free-throw attempts.
“KD in the first half was incredible. She did a great job of getting to the rim and finishing around the basket,” Tungate said of Dean.
In a theme over the two games, the Grizzlies forced UIC into 21 turnovers on Saturday that led to 19 points. On Sunday, Oakland created 20 more turnovers and turned those into 26 points.
“Both days I thought our effort was really good and I thought what we were doing on the defensive end in forcing and creating those turnovers, and then making good decisions after those, was really good,” Tungate said.
Sunday’s win saw Oakland dominate the first and third quarters. The Grizzlies got out to a 19-8 lead after one and then outscored the Flames 32-16 in the third quarter thanks to four 3-pointers.
“It was great to see we were coming out with a lot of confidence (in the third). We were passing up a lot of shots in the first half. (UIC) was giving us those shots and we weren’t stepping up