Contact: Emily Adlfinger, Director of Athletic Communications, 563-588-7970

PELLA, Iowa (Feb. 5, 2022) – Led by a career-best performance by senior guard Hannah Thiele, the Loras College women's basketball team (14-6, 8-3 A-R-C) pulled away for a dominant 76-56 win against Central College (4-11, 2-7 A-R-C) on Saturday.

Both teams kept it close to start the game but the Dutch held the advantage with 57 percent shooting from the field. Cierra Bachmann came up big for the Duhawks in the final two minutes, draining a pair of three-pointers to cut into Central's six-point lead and bring the Duhawks within one point, down 18-19, heading into the second quarter. She and Madison Haslow started the second quarter off with back to back three-pointers to take a five-point lead but the Dutch kept fighting and took back a 27-26 lead with 4:32 left in the half. Sami Martin and Madison Fleckenstein added buckets to put Loras ahead until Central tied it one more time with a three-pointer with 1:56 left on the clock. It was Bachmann again who came up with the shot from downtown, putting Loras up 33-30 at the break.

Loras started to heat up in the third quarter with Thiele leading the charge as the senior scored eight-unanswered points and went 3-4 from beyond the arc to put Loras up 53-37 with 3:29 left in the quarter. Martin added a pair of layups to close out a dominant third-quarter performance for the Duhawks and carry a 60-40 lead into the final ten minutes.

Bachmann and Fleckenstein started Loras' fourth-quarter run with four more points before Thiele added another three-pointer to extend the lead, 68-40 in the first two minutes. The Dutch responded back with seven points of their own to chip into the lead but another three-pointer by Thiele kept Central at bay with 4:10 left to play and the Duhawks held off Central's offense for the remainder of the contest, coming away with the victory to complete the season sweep.

Thiele led the team with a career-high 23 points and put on a three-point shooting clinic in the process as she now sits third in the single-game record book for three-pointers, knocking down seven. Bachmann added a season-high 19 points with a team-high nine assists and Martin posted ten points with a team-high nine boards. As a team, the Duhawks set a new single-game record for three-pointer attemps (44), came away with 16 steals and only committed eight turnovers. The Dutch held the edge in rebounding, grabbing 44, but 22 turnovers proved problematic for the hosts.

The Duhawks are on the road at Luther College on Wednesday, Feb. 9, taking on the Norse at 5:30 P.M. in Decorah.