EVANSVILLE — With a school-record 4,581 fans in attendance, the University of Evansville women's basketball team enjoyed a historic performance, routing visiting Oakland City 108-68 at the Ford Center on Tuesday afternoon.
"I'm really happy to see us start off as well as we did in a game like this," UE interim head coach Matt Ruffing said. "Our kids had tons of distractions in a game like this. There were thousands of kids here screaming at the top of their lungs, and they were able to focus and stick to the game plan. It was really an outstanding job."
The crowd, which set a school record for the women's basketball team, featured more than 4,000 local students as a part of Education Day. It shatters the previous mark of 3,485, which was set in a game against Southern Illinois on Jan. 26, 2008, at Roberts Stadium.
The Purple Aces have now won three consecutive games for the first time since 2015, improving to 3-5 on the year while the Lady Oaks fell to 2-5.
Six different players hit double figures for the Aces in the contest, led by Brooke Dossett's season-best 24 points. The Vincennes transfer was an efficient 8-of-15 from the field, and she set another personal best with seven assists. Sara Dickey was second on the team with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting while Kerri Gasper went 7-for-10 from the field with 15 points. Meanwhile, the post tandem of Sasha Robinson and Ashley Hawkins combined to miss a shot apiece, putting up 24 points and 14 rebounds.
"I was really happy to see Kerri to have a game like this," Ruffing said. "She's going to be a big piece for us this season. Sasha had a fairly typical game for us this season with 10 and 9. The thing I like about Sara is that the efficiency is starting to come for her."
Camary Williams, the reigning Player of the Week in the Missouri Valley Conference, once again neared a historic stat line. The senior guard has been two steals shy of a triple-double already twice this season, and on Tuesday she ended with 14 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and seven steals.
UE wasted little time getting things started, scoring 37 points in the first quarter on the way to a school-record 61 point first half. Things would not slow down from there as UE finished the day shooting 58.6% from the field, hitting a season-best 11 three-pointers in the process.
The Aces will return to action later this week as the team is set to host Austin Peay on Saturday. Tipoff is set for noon.
NOTES: The game marked the first time the Aces had broken the century mark in points since a 104-77 win at Ohio on Dec. 4, 2004 … It also marked the most points the Aces had scored since a 108-69 win over Saint Louis during the 1990-91 season … Sara Dickey surpassed Southern Illinois Jeanette Tendai (1983-86) to move up to 19th on the MVC's scoring list with a career point total of 1,782 … Dickey also ranks 23rd in Valley history with 214 three pointers, tying her with Indiana State's Lisa Verhoff for 23rd … Sasha Robinson is now 67 rebounds off the pace of Samantha Heck (2009-13) for the fifth-best rebounding total in school history … The Aces are 19-5 all-time against Oakland City … Overall, UE is 127-162 all-time against Indiana schools.
=== #AcesAces ===
