PICTURED ABOVE: Kristi Demski led the Thunder with 11 points in Saturday's 75-53 win at Millikin.

Decatur, Ill. - The Thunder women's basketball team turned in its ninth-consecutive victory on Saturday evening, cruising to a 75-53 rout of Millikin University. Wheaton never trailed in the game, marking the second game this week that Wheaton has led wire-to-wire. With the win, Wheaton improves to 15-5 overall and 8-2 in the CCIW. Millikin falls to 5-13 and 0-9 in conference play. Wheaton will next be in action on Wednesday night, when the Thunder welcome Carthage to King Arena for the first of three-straight home games.

Devin Kyler's three-point play just under 100 seconds into action on Saturday night, provided Wheaton with its first lead only to have Millikin answer with a three-pointer. Kelly Lawson's lay-up on the ensuing possession gave Wheaton its final lead of the night and started an 11-1 run that saw the Big Blue held without a field goal for a stretch of over five minutes.

After building a 16-6 lead at the end of the first quarter, Wheaton continued to pull away, holding Millikin without a field goal for another six minutes without a field goal to lead 23-7. Wheaton momentarily pushed the lead past twenty points only to have it reduced to a 33-17 halftime advantage.

Millikin held serve early in the second half but a 9-0 Thunder run consisting of a three-pointer by Lawson and consecutive triples by Hannah Williams pushed the lead out to 48-21. That nine-point spurt served as the foundation to an extended 22-6 run that put Wheaton ahead 60-27 after three quarters. Wheaton would lead by as many as 31 points in the final quarter, but Millikin closed the game on a 12-3 run to cut the final score down to 75-53.

Wheaton made all 10 of its free throw attempts on Saturday and shot 44.4% (28-63) from the field, including a 37.5% (9-24) clip from the three-point line. Millikin shot 34.4% (18-53) from the field and 33.3% (4-12) from the three-point line while shooting 81.3% (13-16) from the free throw line. The Big Blue won the rebounding battle 38-32 including a 13-9 edge in offensive boards.

Kristi Demski led a balanced scoring attack for the Thunder that saw 10 different players find the scoring column. Demski scored 11 points and was joined in double figures by Maggie Dansdill with 10 points. Kelly Lawson and Devin Kyler each scored nine points with Kyler adding a team-high eight rebounds. Hannah Frazier and Hannah Williams each finished with eight points.