Lake Forest College Sports Information
February 24th, 2001
Contact:  Scott Rucker, SID

Foresters Defeat Carroll 72-59, Win Second Straight MWC Championship
Grubbs and McCants combine for 47 points
  

Tournament Leaders
In the MWC Championship Tournament, Katie McCants (above) scored 42 points, Kim Magee (middle) pulled down 21 rebounds and Alison Grubbs (bottom) had 11 steals.
LAKE FOREST, IL - Unlike the previous night, the Forester women's basketball team did not need a dramatic ending in the Midwest Conference Championship Game to earn the 72-59 victory over Carroll College on Saturday (February 24th). It is the second consecutive league title for Lake Forest and the fourth in the program's history. Carroll had defeated Ripon College 70-54 on Friday (February 23rd) and Lake Forest scored 5 points in the final 7 seconds in their 66-63 win over St. Norbert to reach the final. 

After scoring all five of those last-minute points on Friday, senior guard Alison Grubbs (Cullom, IL/Tri-Point) poured in a game-high 27 on Saturday. She also added 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 steals. In the two tournament games combined, Grubbs scored 37 points, pulled down 11 rebounds, dished out 7 assists and added 11 steals.

Sophomore forward Katie McCants (Menasha, WI/Menasha) was the tournament's leading scorer with 22 points on Friday and another 20 in the championship game on Saturday. In the title game, she shot 9-for-14 from the field and pulled down 6 rebounds. For the weekend, she made 19 of 31 field goal attempts (61.3%) and added 14 rebounds.

The leading rebounder in both the Forester contests was senior forward Kim Magee (Lake Oswego, OR/Lake Oswego). After pulling down a game-high 10 boards on Friday, she topped it with an 11-rebound performance on Saturday. Not only did she lead all rebounders in the title game, but she also passed out a game and career-high 6 assists. Magee sat out a total of just eight minutes in the two games combined. 

The most glaring statistical difference between Lake Forest and Carroll on Saturday was in the turnover category, where the Foresters forced 20 Carroll miscues and made just 11 such mistakes themselves.

Senior guard Karla Gribble (Mineral Point, WI/Mineral Point) scored 9 of the Foresters first 11 points on 3 three-pointers as Lake Forest jumped out to an early 15-7 lead. They extended that lead to nine points (22-13) before a 9-0 Carroll run erased it completely with just less than six minutes remaining until halftime. The teams basically traded baskets for the rest of the period and Lake Forest went into the locker room with a 33-32 halftime edge.

With the score 37-36 in favor of the Foresters, the home team began a 13-0 run to take a commanding lead with less than 13 minutes to play. Carroll cut the difference to six points on three separate occasions before Lake Forest scored nine straight points to put the game out of reach with just one minute to go.

Along with the MWC Championship comes an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship Tournament. Lake Forest will find out Sunday evening who their opponent will be in Wednesday's first-round game.

Box Score