Wildcats Championship Bound After Thriller With Briar Cliff

Wildcats Championship Bound After Thriller With Briar Cliff
March 25, 2025

SIOUX CITY, IA. - 1-seed Indiana Wesleyan women's basketball will play for the program's third Red Banner on Tuesday night. IWU defeated the 3-seed Briar Cliff Chargers 70-69 to advance to the title game for the first time since 2013.The Wildcats used a late run to build a six point lead with 13 seconds left which proved to be just enough to overcome a pair of late mistakes the allowed the Chargers to score five points with less than two seconds left in the game. Emily Mattingly played a crucial role late for the red and gray, scoring five points in fourth with each bucket coming after BCU had cut the lead to one.

 

THE ESSENTIALS

  • Location: Sioux City, IA | Tyson Events Center
  • Records: IWU: 34-2  | BCU: 30-6
  • NAIA Seeding: IWU - #1 | BCU - #3

 

WHAT HAPPENED

  • Briar Cliff used the energy of the hometown fans to fuel an 8-2 run to start the game. IWU eventually settled in and scored 7 straight to end the first quarter, taking a 13-10 lead into the first break.
  • Offensive rebounds and second chance points helped the Chargers to a 21-13 advantage in the second quarter. A 7-0 run over the final 3 minutes of the half put the Wildcats down 31-26 at half.
  • IWU quickly grabbed momentum in the third quarter, tying the game at 31 just 2 minutes into the frame. However the Wildcats found themselves trailing by 4 with 1:50 left in the quarter. A Brea Garberthree, Lilli Frasure layup, and a Tori Thompson layup with 2 seconds left put IWU ahead 45-42.
  • The teams played a back and forth final frame with the Chargers taking a late lead at 61-60 with 2 minutes left in the game. Grad Student Maddie Lawrence quickly gave Indiana Wesleyan the lead back with a powerful drive to the paint resulting in a layup. After a BCU miss, Frasure got another layup to drop. Briar Cliff failed to score on their next 2 trips, resulting in 3 points from the foul line for IWU. A Frasure free throw put the Wildcats up 70-65 with 6 seconds left. The Chargers got fouled on a three with 1 second left and proceeded to knock down the first 2 free throws and got an offensive rebound-putbakc layup to cut the lead to 1 as time expired.

 

NOTABLE NUMBERS

  • 13: Emily Mattingly put together the best scoring game of her career with a career high 13 points. She also played a career high 36 minutes.
  • 4: After committing 11 turnovers in the first half, the Wildcats took care of the ball with just 4 in the second half.
  • 32:  IWU found an advantage inside with 32 paint points to BCU's 26. 

 

KEY WILDCATS

 

LOOKING AHEAD

  • The Wildcats will battle the defending National Champions, Dordt University in the title game tonight at 8:00 PM ET.
  • Links for video and live stats will be available at IWUWildcats.com

 

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