Rock Island, Ill. - The Wheaton women's basketball team opened its 2021 schedule on Saturday afternoon with an impressive 69-42 victory over Augustana College. The win is Wheaton's first road win over the Vikings since the 2017-18 season and is Wheaton's first road win in a season opener since 2015. Wheaton will next be in action on Thursday, when the Thunder host Millikin at King Arena for a 7 pm tipoff.

Wheaton finished the game shooting 37.3% (28-75) from the field despite making only 20% (5-25) of their three-point attempts. The Vikings were held to 23.5% (12-51) from the field and made five-of-17 (29.4%) from beyond the arc. Wheaton finished six-of-13 (61.%) from the free throw line while the Vikings shot 65% (13-20). Both teams grabbed 15 offensive rebounds with the Vikings finishing the game with a 49-44 edge in total rebounds. Wheaton's largest advantage came by forcing 25 Augustana turnovers with 22 points off turnovers. Augustana finished with just one point off only six Wheaton turnovers.

Wheaton's only deficit of the game came in the opening minutes when the Vikings scored the first four points of the game. The Thunder would follow with eight unanswered points, and never looked back in building a 15-11 lead after 10 minutes.

The Thunder defense allowed Wheaton to get some separation to start the second quarter, holding the Vikings without a field goal for the first five minutes and 44 seconds of the quarter. Annie Tate scored the first six points for the Thunder and Hannah Swider's basket pushed the Thunder lead to 23-11. Augustana would the lead back to 25-19 with 3:39 to play in the half, before the Thunder closed the half on a 13-0 run to take a 38-19 halftime lead.

Hannah Williams extended the run to 16 unanswered points by starting the third quarter with a three-pointer to push the lead over the 20-point plateau fo the first time. Augustana would get no closer than 18 points the rest of the way as the Thunder built a 54-29 lead at the end of the third quarter and coasted to the 69-42 victory.

Hannah Swider led all scorers with 21 points and was joined in double figures by Hannah Williams with 16 points and Annie Tate with 11 points to go with seven rebounds. Zoe Nordling also grabbed seven rebounds to tie for the game-high.