When senior guard Kadie Lowery is hitting her shots, the Hillsdale College women's basketball team is awfully tough to beat.
Such was the case Monday night.
Lowery poured in 12 of her season-high 18 points in the opening minutes of the first half, as the Chargers cruised to a 67-49 win over Saginaw Valley State University at the O'Neill Arena, just outside of Saginaw. Hillsdale has now exceeded its win total from all of last year, and stands at 13-6 overall, 9-6 in the GLIAC.
Hillsdale returns home later this week to open the second half of its North Division double round-robin by hosting Northwood University at 6 p.m.
Lowery scored the second-most points in a game in her career and had one of her most efficient shooting nights while doing it. She went 8-for-11 from the field, and had 4 rebounds and 2 assists in a magnificent performance. She scored 12 of Hillsdale's first 16 points during a game-opening 18-4 run in which the Chargers left little doubt in the final result of this contest.
Key contributions came from all over the stat sheet for Hillsdale. Sophomore guard Becca Scherting, playing very close to her hometown of Saginaw, scored 9 points to go along with 5 rebounds and 3 assists in an excellent effort off the bench.
Senior forward Chelsea Farrell made a big impact on the game as well, adding 7 points and 5 rebounds off the bench. Freshman Allie Dittmer had 8 points and 7 rebounds while Brooke Borowski and Kayla Geffert each had 6. Hillsdale's bench accounted for 36 points in the win.
In all, 10 different Charger players scored points in the game. Hillsdale also had another dominating effort on the boards, outrebounding Saginaw Valley State 51-33. Although the Chargers committed 19 turnovers, they were able to limit SVSU to just 13 points off those miscues, minimizing mistakes. The Hillsdale defense held the Cardinals to just 27 percent shooting from the field in the game.
This was Hillsdale's 11th win away from home this season, one shy of the school record of 12, held by the 2008-09 team.