KIRKSVILLE, Mo. –  The calendar flips to February and the march to March begins with two road games this week for the Truman Women's Basketball team. The Bulldogs will look for the season sweep when they face Lewis University on Thursday night then head to the University of Indianapolis for their only scheduled meeting this season.
 
Truman has won 12 of their last 14 games and posted a record of 9-1 during the month of January. They have won seven straight road games, a program best, that started on November 20^th at Southwest Minnesota State and has continued with road triumphs at Quincy, McKendree, Missouri S&T, Maryville, Missouri-St. Louis and Lindenwood. The previous best was five-straight road wins on two separate occasions, both occurring during the 2020 season.
 
Last week, the Bulldogs split home games with Southern Indiana and McKendree. USI snapped Truman's 10-game winning streak with a 78-66 win in Pershing Arena last Thursday. The Bulldogs bounced back by bouncing McKendree for their largest conference win of the season, a 27-point 90-63 win. 
 
In that contest, 12 of the 13 players that saw the court scored and all played over 10 minutes in a balanced attack. Truman shot a season-high 61% from the field, going 33-of-54 and matched their season-high with 13 three-pointers. Gracie Stugart and Hannah Pinkston set new collegiate game highs with 12 points each, Pinkston was 5-of-7 from the field in just under 10 minutes of action while Stugart played a season-high 30 minutes and added seven assists. 
 
Truman is one win shy of hitting 15 for the season. The Bulldogs have reached 15 wins for 10 straight seasons. Prior to the 2011-12 season, the program reached 15 wins in a season eight times. The Bulldogs have already won 10 conference games for the 11^thstraight season and 13^th season overall. 
 
Midwest Regional Rankings:
The Division II Sports Information Directors of America released their Midwest regional rankings on Monday and Truman is eighth in the regional poll. Ashland is first, followed by Grand Valley State, Drury, Southern Indiana, Walsh, Saginaw Valley State and Missouri-St. Louis. Northwood and Ferris State round out the top 10. Truman was tied for seventh in the poll last week. 
 
 
Belanger Climbs Over 1,100 Points:
Junior guard Hannah Belanger topped over 1,100 points last week when she scored 13 against Southern Indiana last Thursday. Belanger was a healthy scratch against McKendree on Saturday, snapping a streak of 69 straight games dating back to her freshman season.
 
Belanger is now 111 points away from entering the career top 10 in scoring. She is currently 20^th on the career list and will next pass Courtney Strait (1,126), Angie Griffin (1,128) and Candace McGee (1,134). Belanger's 16.0 points per game mark for her career is the third best by a Bulldog with 50 or more games. She is the eighth Truman player to score over 1,000 points in three seasons. 
 
For the season, Belanger is third in the GLVC in scoring at 17.7 points per game, second in assists (4.32), fifth in three-pointers made (2.11), third in assist/turnover ratio (1.71) and second in minutes played (35.0).
 
Re Closing In On Top 10 Boards:
Maddie Re is six rebounds away from cracking the Truman career rebounding chart. Re enters the week with 595 rebounds and will tie Jennifer Fisher (1999-03) when she reaches 601 rebounds. Felicia Sutton (1987-91) and Carol Jarrard (1978-82) are the only two players with over 1,000 rebounds (1232 – Sutton; 1084 – Jarrard). Ninth on the list is Shelley Picha (1988-92) with 642. 
 
Weltha Racking Up Double/Doubles:
Ellie Weltha has 10 double-doubles this season which is tops among GLVC players. She is in the top 20 nationally in double-doubles.
 
Weltha is sixth in scoring at 14.7 points, second in rebounds at 10.2 and fourth in field goal percentage (.552) in the GLVC. 
Her 19 rebounds against Southern Indiana last Thursday was a new single-game high for the junior. She has had three games of 15 or more rebounds this season. 
 
Klucking Closing In On 100 Career Games:
Senior Katey Klucking is the active leader in games played with 96 entering the week. She has averaged 11.1 points this season, up from her career number of 8.2 points. She has 217 career assists and is at 788 career points while knocking down 132 three-pointers.  She is seven triples away from cracking the career top 10 in three-pointers made.
 
Dean Hits 50-Win Milestone:
In only his third season on the bench, Head Coach Theo Dean has rocketed up the career coaching charts at Truman and the Bulldogs win at Lindenwood was his 50^th in his 68^th career game. Dean's .728 winning percentage is tops among all former Truman coaches, including previous boss Amy Eagan's .642 winning percentage. 
 
Dean's teams have a 40-9 GLVC record with a 20-6 conference home slate and a 21-3 conference road record in the past three seasons. The Bulldogs are currently on a school-best seven-game road winning streak and earlier this season had a program-best 10-game overall consecutive winning streak.
 
Up Next: Truman will play their final three regular season home games starting next Thursday with a rematch against Quincy followed by their first and only games against Illinois Springfield (Saturday) and William Jewell (Feb. 17).   
 
 
Series History w/Lewis: Truman has won three straight and have taken four of the last five against the Flyers after Lewis had won six straight from 2015-2019. The Bulldogs won their first game in Romeoville the last time they played on the Lewis campus to open the 2020-21 season. Truman grabbed a 76-66 win. The last two have been in Kirksville with the Bulldogs winning 83-74 in February 2021 and 83-75 back on January 6. Hannah Belanger scored 28 points and Grace Hilbner scored 24 for Lewis. Belanger went 11-of-11 with eight straight at the free throw line during the final 1:26 of the game to put the contest out of reach. 
 
About the Flyers: Lewis has not won back-to-back games this season and are coming off a 76-75 defeat at Illinois Springfield last Saturday. The Flyers led by 12 in the first half and had the lead until 2:25 left to play when the Prairie Stars got a three-pointer from Lauren Ladowski. Lewis led 75-74 but a late foul and two free throws by Ally Gietzel put UIS over the top for the win. Taylor Gugliuzza led Lewis in scoring for the second straight game with 15 points. Grace Hilber leads the team with 15 points per game followed by Kathryn Schmidt with 14.4. The Flyers are 14^th in the GLVC in scoring defense at 70.4 points allowed per game but third in three-pointers made at 6.69 per game.
 
Series History w/Indianapolis: Both teams have had success on each other's home floor with Truman taking five of eight in Indianapolis and the Greyhounds winning four of six in Kirksville. UINDY scored a 78-74 overtime win in Kirksville in the team's only meeting last season with Mickey Sasson scoring 20 points and adding 18 rebounds. Hannah Belanger tied the game with seven seconds left and Truman scored the first four points of overtime. Taylor Drury's three-point play put UINDY back on top with 54 seconds left. The Bulldogs have won the last three in Indianapolis with the latest being a 76-68 victory in November 2020. 
 
About the Greyhounds: UINDY had their three-game winning streak stopped at Illinois Springfield on Monday night 79-68. Lauren With led the Greyhounds with 21 points. Previously, UINDY had won at home over Lewis and road games over Missouri S&T and Quincy. Sadie Hill (12.9) and Taylor Drury (11.8) lead the 'hounds in scoring. UINDY is eighth in scoring (66.7) in the league and eighth in scoring defense (66.8). They are first in free throw shooting at 80.9% and second behind the Bulldogs in overall field goal shooting at 45.7%. The team is second in three-point field goal shooting at 35.8% and are a league-best 7.33 three-pointers per game.