Red Devils Ring in New Year Sunday Versus Rust
EUREKA, Ill. – Following a 12-day break from game competition for the holidays, the Eureka College women's basketball team will ring in the new year Sunday with a 1 p.m. non-conference tip-off against the Rust Bearcats at Christine Bonati Bollwinkle Arena. The contest is Eureka's first at home since Nov. 19.
PDF Version of Eureka Game Notes
AT A GLANCE
Location: Eureka, Ill.
Site: Christine Bonati Bollwinkle Arena (1,000)
Series Since 1983: First Meeting
EUREKA RED DEVILS
Record: 6-5, 3-0 SLIAC
Head Coach: Steve Thompson, 3rd season (Wooster '01)
RUST BEARCATS
Record: 0-12
Head Coach: Spencer Williams, 2nd season
FOLLOW THE GAME
Live Video: EurekaRedDevils.com
Live Stats: EurekaRedDevils.com
Twitter Updates: @EurekaGameDay
ABOUT EUREKA
Eureka will bring a 6-5 record into Sunday's game at Christine Bonati Bollwinkle Arena, having alternated wins and losses over its last four contests. The upcoming bout with the Bearcats marks the Red Devils' final non-conference game of the regular season.
Junior guard Hayley Reneau is Eureka's leading scorer, putting up an average of 12.4 points per game. The Illinois Central transfer has scored 14 points or more in seven of the Red Devils' 11 contests, including a career-high 23 points on a 5-for-9 effort from 3-point range at Spalding on Dec. 3.
Reneau has also anchored Eureka's defensive effort, leading the team with 28 steals and 13 blocked shots.
Senior forward Michaela Balducci nearly averages a double-double for EC, averaging 11.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. The Eureka, Ill. native has scored 676 career points, 28th-most in program history, despite missing the final 21 games of her sophomore season in 2014-15 due to injury.
Defensively, Eureka limits opponents to 71.3 points per game. The Red Devils' 3.7 blocked shots per game leads the SLIAC, as does EC's .265 3-point field goal percentage defense.
Sunday's game is Eureka's first home contest since playing two home games on Saturday, Nov. 19. The Red Devils' went 4-4 on their eight-game, 28-day road trip, covering three different states and more than 2,000 miles on the road. Included in the road trip were victories at Blackburn, Spalding and Webster, giving the Red Devils their first 3-0 St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference start since the 2013-14 season.
Eureka was picked to finish sixth in the SLIAC, according to a coaches' poll released before the start of the season.
THE NATIONAL LEADER IN ASSISTS
Eureka leads NCAA Division III with 218 total assists, according to the latest national statistical update on Dec. 22. EC's 19.8 assists per game ranks fourth nationally.
Four of the Red Devils' five starters rank among the national top-200 in assists. Junior guard Kerrigan Dura leads the group with 56 total assists, 10th-most in Division III. Her sister, freshman guard Kennedy Dura, ranks 98th nationally with 37 assists, followed by senior Luci Weis (35 assists, 120th nationally) and junior guard Hayley Reneau (32 assists, 182nd nationally).
Additionally, Kerrigan Dura's 1.87 assist-to-turnover ratio leads the SLIAC and ranks 69th in Division III.
LEXI DOOLEY NAMED SLIAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Two days after leading the Eureka to sole possession of first place in the SLIAC standings, sophomore forward Lexi Dooley was chosen as the conference Player of the Week, the league announced prior to the Red Devils' game at North Park on Dec. 19.
Dooley came off the bench in contests at Chicago and at Webster, averaging 11.0 points and 7.5 rebounds. She scored 16 points on 6-for-7 shooting and hauled down 11 rebounds in the win at Webster, breaking a first-place tie with the Gorloks and helping EC match its best start to a conference schedule since joining the SLIAC in 2006.
The announcement marks Dooley's first career SLIAC Player of the Week award. She joins senior teammate Michaela Balducci as Red Devils to be honored by the league this season.
ABOUT RUST
Rust, an NCAA Division III independent member school, entered the weekend with an 0-12 overall record. The Bearcats are scheduled to visit Manchester (Ind.) Saturday afternoon before traveling to Eureka for Sunday's matchup with the Red Devils. A 61-58 setback at Birmingham-Southern on Dec. 16 was the closest call for RC this season.
RC opened the season with back-to-back contests against SLIAC member schools. The Bearcats dropped their season opener at Webster on Nov. 18, 85-70, before losing the following day to Spalding, 65-59, as part of the Cavallo Tip-Off in St. Louis.
The Bearcats rank near the bottom of NCAA Division III in most major statistical categories. RC scores 56.5 points per game, 339th out of 434 member schools. Rust's team free throw percentage of .539 ranks 414th nationally.
Three players average at least 10.7 points per game. Senior guard Jasmine Golden has started all 12 contests and pours in 16.7 points per game thanks to a team-high 28 3-point field goals.
Junior center Megan Rayford also contributes significantly to the Bearcats' attack, hauling down 13.2 rebounds per game. She has also compiled five double-doubles, 24 steals and a team-high eight blocked shots.
Rust went 2-22 overall last season. According to the NCAA record book, the Bearcats have not posted a winning season since earning a 14-11 mark in 2002-03.
Rust College, located 50 miles southeast of Memphis over the Tennessee-Mississppi border, is a liberal arts college founded in 1866 in Holly Springs, Miss. The enrollment is approximately 800 students.
ABOUT THE HEAD COACHES
Steve Thompson is in his third season as head coach of the Red Devils.
Since taking the reins of the program in 2014, Thompson has built on the Red Devils' sustained success and guided EC to the SLIAC Tournament in each of his first two seasons, including a title game appearance in 2015.
In addition to his role with the Eureka women's basketball program, Thompson has served EC as Director of Athletics since Jan. 2, 2014. Thompson has more than a decade of administrative experience in collegiate athletics, including five years at NCAA Division III Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
The current campaign is Spencer Williams's second season as head coach at Rust. He is Rust's sixth women's basketball head coach since 1982.
Williams owns only two wins as head coach since arriving in Holly Springs in 2015, a 48-42 win over Millsaps on Dec. 1, 2015 and a 59-45 triumph over Wesleyan (Ga.) on Feb. 13, 2016.
SERIES VERSUS RUST
Eureka will be meeting Rust in women's basketball for the first time on record, Sunday.
While the Bearcats will be new to the Red Devils on the hardwood, the two schools met in softball for a doubleheader on March 15, 2010 on the campus of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. EC won game one, 21-0, and also won game two, 14-0.
FOLLOW THE ACTION ONLINE
A live video broadcast and live statistics will be provided at EurekaRedDevils.com.
The Eureka College media relations staff will provide updates throughout the game via Twitter at @EurekaGameDay.
NORTH PARK PULLS AWAY TO DOWN RED DEVILS
Eureka trailed host North Park by only four points at halftime of a non-conference game in Chicago, Ill. on Dec. 19, but the Vikings used a strong second half to earn a 68-48 over the Red Devils. EC sophomore Lexi Dooley put up another double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
North Park never trailed and led Monday's for all but 48 seconds. The Vikings scored six of the first seven points of the game and led 15-7 at the end of the first quarter.
After falling into a 13-point hole, Eureka closed the half on a high note thanks to a 20-11 run over the final 8:45. Dooley's layup with 21 seconds remaining brought the visitors within two (29-27) before NPU took a 31-27 cushion into halftime.
The hosts opened the second half with a 12-4 burst, opening up a 43-31 lead with 4:33 left in the third quarter. NPU would lead by double digits for the remainder of the game.
Dooley went 5-for-12 from the field and knocked down her only 3-point field goal attempt of the day. Junior guard Hayley Reneau added nine points. The Red Devils struggled from the floor, shooting 18-for-65 for the game and 5-for-26 from 3-point range.
Liz Rehberger scored nearly half of the Vikings' points, finishing with 32 points. Shaylee Sloan collected a game-high 11 rebounds.
