Wildcats Roll Past William Penn at Home, 59-42

BALDWIN CITY, Kan. – With its starting-five recording 51 of its 59 points, Baker women's basketball used an all-around effort to boost itself to a double-digit victory over visiting William Penn, 59-42 on Wednesday evening in the Collins Center.

Picking up their ninth Heart of America win, the Wildcats (13-13, 9-12) secured a spot in the conference tournament for the first time since 2018-19, locking up the No. 8 seed in the bracket. In her first year at the helm, head coach Torie Murillo has already surpassed the total number of wins – both overall and conference – of the past three seasons.

Baker came out on top of the low-scoring affair by limiting the Statesmen to just 42 points in the contest, a season-best for the BU defense. The Wildcats held WPU to a 30-percent night from the floor (19-63) and owned a 39-33 advantage on the glass.

Sophia Barrett notched her 18th double-digit scoring performance of the season with a team-high 14 points while Emma Cunningham was next with 12 points and also pulled down seven rebounds. Ainsley Tolson added nine points to go with her nine boards and Chassidy Weathers and Leah Van Weelden tallied eight points apiece.

BU came out of the gate hot, racking up a 10-0 lead before the halfway point of the opening quarter. Cunningham went to work right away inside, scoring the first six points for Baker before Van Weelden's layup spotted the Wildcats the early double-digit advantage. The Wildcats kept the Statesmen to a mere five points in the first as the game went scoreless for the last three minutes of the period to make it 12-5 in favor of BU after a quarter of play.

Baker's defense continued to thwart William Penn in the second quarter with the Statesmen getting their first points of the period not until the 4:41 mark. During WPU's cold stretch, the Wildcats were able to build their lead all the way out to 17 points with a couple of threes from Barrett and Weathers sparking the run.

William Penn strung together a few baskets to close out the first half and cut the Baker lead down to 10 points with a halftime score of 26-16.

Van Weelden completed an old-fashioned three-point play to open the third quarter and another Weathers triple kept Baker at a comfortable 12-point distance, four minutes into the second half. The Statesmen worked their way back to get the game within single digits, but a Tolson layup before the buzzer made it 39-29 at the final quarter break.

In the fourth, the Wildcats would get three straight three-point plays with Emmery Joseph draining a baseline three while Barrett and Van Weelden each followed with three-point plays the hard way as Barrett scored hers off of a pass from Van Weelden before the Marion, Iowa native added her three points on the next trip down.

Baker maintained its control of the game the rest of the way, never letting the lead get under 12 points to cap its 59-42 victory and stamp its conference tournament ticket.

Baker improves to 13-13 overall and 9-12 against conference opponents this season. The Wildcats host their regular-season finale versus Peru State on Saturday, Feb. 18 at 2 p.m., inside the Collins Center.

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