Over the Thanksgiving break, the Maroons kept the ball rolling, topping both Carroll University and Carthage College.

The Maroons opened up play in their home court with a decisive 83–38 victory over Carroll. All 13 players contributed to the win with everyone playing at least 10 minutes. Highlighted was an impressive outing by first-year Miranda Burt, who led all point scorers with 17. She shot an impressive .889 field goal percentage and collected five steals.

The second game of the week proved to be a bit more challenging, featuring an overtime win over Carthage. The Maroons looked dominating going into halftime with a score of 28­–19, but Carthage struck back immediately, cutting the lead to four. The story of the rest of the game was scoring in clumps: The Maroons jumped to their biggest lead at 65–48 with seven minutes to go before Carthage caught fire again, rallying on a 21–2 run down the stretch, taking their first lead of the game at 67–69.

The final 30 seconds of the game featured a crucial offensive rebound by third-year Elizabeth Nye and a subsequently fouled fourth-year Britta Nordstrom who made both free throws to tie the game and force an overtime. Nordstrom continued to dominate in overtime: She ended tied for the team lead with 20 points.

Defeating Carthage was a huge win for the Maroons as they had lost to them in the previous four seasons. The tenacity of this team showed strong in their ability to eke out a win. Fourth-year Stephanie Anderson noted how big this win was, saying, “It was great to beat Carthage finally because we never have, especially after they took a 20-point lead away from us last year. When they came back you could see that the returners on the team start to worry about a repeat comeback but it was great to see everyone lift their heads up and refuse to let that happen again, which speaks to the difference in the team this year.”

The Maroons will next see action at home on Wednesday against No. 21 Wheaton College. Wheaton leads the all-time meetings 16–14 against the Maroons dating back to the 1975–76 season. “Wheaton’s supposed to be an even better team than Carthage so I'm excited to keep proving how good we actually are by matching up with better and better teams,” Anderson said.

Catch the Maroons in action at home on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Ratner Athleticst Center.