The Lake Forest College women's basketball team prevailed 55-48 at Cornell College on Saturday to earn its first victory of the season. Sophomore forward Brie Majkowski came off the bench to lead the Foresters with a career-high 16 points and eight rebounds.
Majkowski shot 7-for-11 from the field and added a pair of blocked shots. Junior forward K.C. Stralka and senior guard Abby Wiedman also reached doueble figures with 11 points apiece. Stralka filled up the stat sheet with six rebounds, three assists, two steals, and two blocks while Wiedman connected three times from beyond the arc and recorded two steals. Senior guard Jenna Rice added seven points and led all players in the game with six assists and three steals.
The Forester defense limited Cornell to just 28.3 percent shooting from the floor while the visitors made 37 percent of their field goal attempts. The Rams had a slight 39-38 edge in rebounds but committed 17 turnovers to Lake Forest's 13.
Cornell scored the game's first two points just 45 seconds into the game and still led 2-0 after seven minutes of play. The home team led 10-8 before a three-pointer by Wiedman started a 9-0 run and put the Foresters ahead for good.
Lake Forest led 19-16 at halftime and was ahead by three again at 26-23 before a 12-2 run capped off by a Rice three-pointer gave the team its largest lead of the game at 38-25 with 13 minutes to play. The Rams trimmed the margin to eight points several times and finally scored five in a row to pull to make the score 53-48 with 2:17 remaining. The Forester defense held the home team scoreless the rest of the way, however, and a pair of free throws by Rice with 36 seconds on the clock closed out the scoring.
The Foresters are now 1-2 overall this season and 1-1 in the MWC after facing the top two teams in the league's preseason coaches poll. Cornell fell to 1-2 overall and 0-1 in the conference.
Lake Forest will travel to Milwaukee School of Engineering for a non-conference game Tuesday night at 7:00.