NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. - The #24 Rose-Hulman women's basketball team achieved another milestone on Saturday afternoon. The Fightin' Engineers rolled past Manchester 89-50 and finished Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference play a perfect 18-0. Rose is just the second team in league history to complete the regular season conference slate unbeaten. Transylvania completed the feat back in 2014-15. The win also marked the 20th consecutive victory for Rose-Hulman, a program record.
Rose-Hulman jumped out to an early 6-2 lead and never looked back. The Fightin' Engineers shot 50% (8-16) in the opening quarter and led by four, 17-13 after the first 10 minutes of play. Rose-Hulman stepped up defensively in the second quarter and held the Spartans to eight points on just 3-12 shooting. Rose-Hulman outscored Manchester 19-8 in the second quarter and led 36-21 at halftime. Junior Ally Bromenschenkel made all five of her field goal attempts and led Rose with 10 points at the intermission.
Rose-Hulman's offense shot 73% (22-30) in the second half and the Engineers pulled away from the Spartans. RHIT outscored Manchester 27-13 and 26-16 in the third and fourth quarters respectively. In total, Rose-Hulman outscored the Spartans 46-18 in the paint, 34-19 in bench scoring, and 21-10 in points off of turnovers. RHIT also dominated the boards 37-25.
For the game, the Fightin' Engineers shot a blistering 60% (38-63) from the field. Rose-Hulman went 9-19 (47%) from downtown and placed five players in double figures. Abby Bromenschenkel led RHIT with 16 points, nine assists, five rebounds, and four steals. Bromenschenkel went 6-10 from the floor and 3-6 from three. Chiarra Franklin scored 14 points and had nine rebounds in 22 minutes off then bench. Ally Bromenschenkel scored 13 points and had six rebounds. Sophie Brooks made a pair of triples and finished with 12 points in the win. Taylor Graham also made a pair of threes and had 10 points. She added five assists and four boards. Rose-Hulman had 28 assists in the win.
The win moved Rose-Hulman to 22-3, 18-0 HCAC. Manchester fell to 7-18, 6-12 HCAC. RHIT will host the HCAC Conference Tournament next weekend, February 23-24, in Hulbert Arena. The Fightin' Engineers will be the #1 seed and will play the winner of the #4 seed Hanover and #5 seed Earlham on Friday.
