Women's Basketball | 2/11/2020 9:29:00 AM

STORM LAKE, Iowa (February 11, 2020) - The Buena Vista women's basketball team is on the road for a pair of games this week beginning with Wednesday night's contest at No. 9 Wartburg College inside Levick Arena.

GAME DETAILS
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 | Storm Lake, Iowa | Levick Arena | 5:30 p.m.
Buena Vista (1-20, 0-12 A-R-C) at No. 9 Wartburg (18-3, 10-2 A-R-C)  WATCH | STATS

LAST TIME OUT
The Beavers got 17 points and four assists from junior Erin Gerke as well as 11 points and a game-high eight rebounds from sophomore Jennifer Schneider, but the team came up short at home against the University of Dubuque, 74-66.

SERIES OUTLOOK
Wednesday will mark the 80th all-time meeting between the two teams during a series which began back in 1982-83.  BVU won 13 of 15 games played from the start of the 2002-03 season through the end of the 2008-09 campaign.  The Knights, however, have had the upper hand in recent years, winning eight straight and 13 of the last 19 overall.  BVU's last victory in the series was a 59-55 triumph inside Siebens Fieldhouse back in 2015-16 which completed the season sweep of the Knights.  The Beavers have dropped nine straight match-ups inside Levick Arena.

SCOUTING WARTBURG       
The ninth-ranked Knights remain in position to claim at least a share of their fourth straight regular season conference championship.  The team enters Wednesday night riding a four-game win streak with their only two conference setbacks on the year coming at home against nationally-ranked Loras College and on the road at Simpson College.  The team is one of four teams to have already secured a spot in the conference tournament and is currently tied with the Duhawks for the top spot.  Those two teams will meet next Wednesday night.  The Knights are the league's top scoring team (86.3ppg) and top defensive team (60.3ppg) and their average margin of victory of 25.9ppg is by far tops in the league.  They shoot better than 48 percent from the field and are over 37 percent from downtown while averaging 11.0 makes per game from beyond the arc.  It's a balanced scoring attack as no indivdual player ranks in the top-15 among the league leaders during conference play.  Payton Draper (11.77ppg) and Emma Gerdes (11.2ppg) have led the way.  Gerdes is the reining American Rivers Conference MVP and continues to direct the team again this season, leading the A-R-C in assists per game (5.6) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.5).  She's also a force defensively, averaging 2.4spg which is seventh.

ABOUT BUENA VISTA
Senior Destiny Einerwold (15.9ppg) and junior Erin Gerke (12.7ppg) have been the team's go-to scorer's for most of the season and each rank in the top-seven of the league in scoring during conference play.  Sophomore Nicole Lange has also given the team an added presence as of late, averaging 14.0ppg over the last three contests and has been in double figures seven times over the last nine contests.  During the most recent stretch, she's shooting right at 50.0 percent from the field (15-of-30) and has gotten to the free-throw line 17 times over the last two games.  Fellow sophomore Jennifer Schneider is behind those three in scoring at 8.2ppg but is the team's active leader in rebounding at 5.5 per outing.  Overall, the team comes in shooting just under 37 percent from the field and just less than 30 percent from long range.  It averages 21 free-throw attempts per game and is shooting nearly 70 percent as a team from the charity stripe.  The team trails only Loras in free-throw attempts during league play.  

ON DECK
The team remains on the road to wrap up the week on Saturday afternoon at Coe College for a 2 p.m. contest in Cedar Rapids.