Holland, Michigan – The Wheaton Thunder women's basketball team concluded its strong 2017-18 season on Friday with a 75-57 loss to the Bears of Washington University-St. Louis (19-7) in the First Round of the NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Tournament. Wheaton ends the season with a 22-6 record. WashU advances to the tournament's second round on Saturday to face the winner of Friday's other First Round game between Hope College and Cornell College.  

Junior forward Devin Kyler (PICTURED LEFT) led Wheaton with 12 points and she added eight rebounds with two steals. Kelly Lawson scored 11 points, making two three-pointers. Lawson also grabbed four rebounds with three assists.

Hannah Frazier scored 10 points for the Thunder. Jill Berg tallied seven points with a game-high nine rebounds off the Thunder bench. She also recorded two blocked shots and her sister. Senior Jennifer Berg tallied eight rebounds. Senior Maggie Dansdill grabbed six rebounds with three assists and three steals.

Thunder head coach Kent Madsen reflected on the season, "I am proud of the team for what they did this season. "It was an interesting start to the season, and you realize when you have significant change in personnel that there will be some growing pains. We started out well and then had our growing pains in the month of December. When looking at things in December things could have went one of two ways. The challenge to them when we came back from Nashville was that we had to do a better job defensively. Next thing you know when won 16-straight games and our defense was a big part of that. It was really neat to see the team progress defensively and do well offensively."

A pair of free throws by Lawson with 4:11 remaining in the first quarter trimmed the Bears' lead to 14-12. However, WashU responded with a 13-2 run to close out the quarter to give the Bears a 27-14 lead at the conclusion of the opening quarter.

The Bears led the Thunder by as many as 16 points at 32-16 with 7:43 left in the second quarter. Wheaton out-scored WashU 14-8 over the final 7:15 of the first half as the Bears held a 10-point lead of 40-30 at halftime.

The Bears scored the first seven points of the third quarter to take a 47-30 lead with 8:37 left in the third quarter. WashU out-scored the Thunder 21-10 in the third quarter as the Bears led 61-40 at the conclusion of the quarter.

The Thunder out-scored WashU 17-14 in the fourth quarter as the Bears earned the 75-57 victory.

The Thunder senior class of Jennifer Berg (PICTURED RIGHT), Mel Bremhost, Dansdill and Lawson helped Wheaton to four-consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, a feat accomplished only on other time in program history. Over the past four seasons Wheaton compiled a 92-21 record, marking the most wins ever by the program in a four-year span. Madsen says of his senior class, "I am really proud of the seniors and what they accomplished. They have continually battled adversity and always fighting. They are the ones that would always grind for the minutes that they play. They are the players that do a lot of the little things that you need for a team to be successful."

Note Worthy: The 22 wins for the Thunder this season is tied for the third-most by a Wheaton women's basketball team in program history…Lawson's 11 points tonight improves her career total to 976 points for 21^st on the Thunder all-time scoring list as she passed Julie Schmela's 965 career points tonight…Dansdill moved into 40th place on Wheaton's all-time scoring list tonight with 632 career points in her three seasons with the Thunder...Kyler is 14^th on the program's all-time rebounding list with 586 career boards...Hannah Frazier's 102 made free throws this year is the 10th-highest single-season total in program history.