Coming off its first loss of the season, the Wilmington College women's basketball team faces a short week in preparing for NAIA nationally-ranked Point Park Tuesday. The Pioneers advanced to the 32-team NAIA National Tournament last season.

"Point Park is a NAIA scholarship team that is the best team in their 16-team league," said Wilmington head coach Jerry Scheve. "They are an athletic basketball team, and we will have to play good team defense to be successful."

The Pioneers leading scorer and rebounder, Sam Weir, has missed the last five games. Weir, who is averaging 18.6 points and 8.6 rebounds, isn't expected to play against Wilmington. However, they are not without scoring options.

Sophomore Kelly Johnson, a transfer from NCAA Division II Clarion, is nearly working on a point per shot ratio with 163 points (16.3 points per game) on 156 shots. However, she is also getting her teammates involved with a team-high 49 assists and a team-high 36 steals.

Senior Kayla Kiriau is averaging 9.6 points and 3.7 rebounds, while sophomore Carly Forse is pulling down a team-high 7.6 boards to go along with 8.8 points.

All five Point Park starters are shooting at least 42 percent from the field as the Pioneers are shooting 42.8 percent from the field as a team. Part of the reason for their effectiveness is the ability to take shots around the paint. PPU is only taking 28.4 percent of their shots beyond the arc.

Junior Ja'Nia McPhatter is the team's best marksman, shooting 50 percent (14-of-28) from the three-point land. Junior Leah Hurst has taken 41 of her 59 shots from behind the arc, making just 10. Johnson is 6-of-33 from three-point area for the Pioneers.

You can expect Point Park to utilize most of their players as 12 of the 13 available players have played in at least nine games for the Pioneers.