Wheaton, Ill.(2/23) – The Thunder women's basketball team advanced to the CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament Championship Game on Friday with a 57-53 victory  against Carthage in the semifinal game on Friday night. With tonight's win Wheaton improves to 18-7 overall and will host Illinois Wesleyan on Saturday at 2 PM in the CCIW Tournament Championship Game. Second-seeded Illinois Wesleyan defeated third-seed Millikin 83-67 in Friday's other semifinal.

Saturday's Championship Game will be broadcast on WETN radio at 88.1 FM in the Wheaton and on WETN-TV, cable channel 72 in the Wheaton area. The game will also be streamed with live audio and video feeds at www.wetn.org.

Wheaton led the Lady Reds 35-26 at halftime of tonight's game. The Thunder held a nine-point advantage at 43-34 with 11:00 left in the second half when the Lady Reds put together an 11-0 run to take a 45-43 lead with 4:25 remaining in regulation. At that point; Wheaton's Kathleen Fidelia scored four straight points, including a three-pointer to spark a 12-2 run that gave her team a 55-47 lead with 36-seconds left in regulation. Fidelia scored seven points in the run and senior Elizabeth Fox added five points to account for all of Wheaton's points in the scoring surge.

Fox led the Thunder with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Late in the second half Fox became the 14th player in Wheaton women's basketball history to score 1,000 points in her career. Fidelia added 12 points, with three assists, while senior Emily Carwell scored 11 points, with three three-point field goals. Junior Jill Trenz grabbed six rebounds, with eight blocked shots, while senior Brittany Cooper led the Thunder with eight rebounds.

Erika Buchholz led Carthage with 14 points, while Carlie Janowiak added 10 points with four assists. Katie Jarger added 10 points, with 12 rebounds, including five offensive boards. Lisa Gartelos came off the Lady Reds' bench to score nine points.

Wheaton shot 39.5% (17-43) from the field, with a 57.9% (11-19) effort from three-point range and 70.6% (12-17) at the free throw line. Carthage shot a 27.9% (17-61) field goal percentage, with 23.8% (5-21) from three point-range and a 77.8% (14-18) at the charity stripe. Carthage out-rebounded the Thunder 43-30 on the night, with a 19-5 edge on the offensive glass.