TOPEKA, Kan. -- The No. 18 Washburn basketball team placed four Lady Blues in double figures led by Corkey Stiger's 21 points and Amanda Holmes' picked up her 14th career double double with 18 points and 11 rebounds in a 74-62 win over Southwest Baptist. With the win, Washburn remains in a first place tie with Emporia State atop the MIAA standings with a 10-3 record, overall Washburn is 18-4. Washburn will be back in action on Saturday at 1 p.m. in Kirkvsville, Mo., when they take on Truman. Washburn defeated Truman 83-60 on Jan. 19 in Lee Arena.
In a match up of the No. 2 (Washburn) and No. 4 (Southwest Baptist) ranked teams in the region, Washburn trailed by no more than three points during the evening after Southwest Baptist's (17-5 overall) Erika Souza opened the game with a 3-pointer en route to her team-high 19 points and the Lady Blues built a lead as many as 10 in the first half at 34-24 with 3:45 to play in the opening half and finished off the period taking a 36-28 lead into the break.
Both teams shot the ball well in the first as the Lady Blues connected on 16 of 32 attempts and the Lady Bearcats hit 11 of 25 attempts from the field with both teams nailing four 3-pointers.
To open the second half, the Lady Bearcats cut the lead to 36-34 as the Lady Blues missed their first three shots of the half coupled with three turnovers as the Washburn was held scoreless the first 4:04 of the second half until Stiger hit a 3-pointer.
Washburn stretched the lead to as many as 13 in the half and kept Southwest Baptist from climbing within 10 points the final 7:36 of the game, except for when SBU cut the lead to nine at 69-60 with 1:07 to play, but a pair of free throws by Jessica Mainz 12 seconds later pushed the margin back to double digits.
Joining Stiger and Holmes in double figures were Mainz and Janice Bright who each had 10. Mainz would add seven rebounds with six coming on the defensive end.
Cortney Shewmaker scored 10 for SBU as the only other Lady Bearcat to reach at least 10 points.
Washburn outrebounded the Lady Bearcats 35 to 26 and forced 16 turnovers turning into 24 points for the Lady Blues.
Washburn hit 29 of 59 (.492) from the field and SBU was 22 of 51 (.431).

Notes: Washburn is now 25-11 all-time against SBU ... the double double game was Amanda Holmes' fourth of the season ... Holmes has now scored 799 points at Washburn ... the 18 points for Holmes was a season high ... SBU was a perfect 11 of 11 from the free throw line ... Washburn has now won eight straight games over SBU in Lee Arena ... Washburn is 298-56 all-time in Lee Arena and coach Ron McHenry is 106-10 all-time in Lee Arena ... Corkey Stiger moved past Jennifer Harris on the single-season 3-pointer chart hitting her 58th against SBU ... Washburn is now 126-2 when scoring at least 70 points under Ron McHenry.