INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- No. 3 Indiana Wesleyan University women’s basketball opened 2014 in a big way as they demolished host Marian (Ind.) by a 71-33 margin on Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Marian scored the first four points of the game but that would be as good as it would get for the Knights. Over the next 25 minutes, Indiana Wesleyan would outscore Marian by a 45-9 count.

Doing a good portion of that damage was senior guard Taylor Goshert. She scored 26 points in all for the second highest total of her career and was just two points shy of her career-high of 28 points. Goshert single handedly outscored Marian in the first half 18-13.

A Knight basket by Clare Holba with 41 seconds left in the first half gave Marian their 13th point of the game. The Knights would not score their 14th point until nearly 9 minutes later when Deauna Evans hit a free throw with 12:02 remaining in the second half. By that time the Wildcats led 45-14.

Jessica Brown hit a jump shot with 5:01 left in the game to give Indiana Wesleyan its biggest lead of 44 points as the scoreboard read 64-20. After that basket Marian scored 13 of the final 20 points of the game.

The victory today gave Indiana Wesleyan head coach Steve Brooks his 400th career win as a women’s basketball coach. He currently holds a 400-113 (.780) record in his 15th season at the helm of the Wildcats. Brooks has guided Indiana Wesleyan to four 30 win seasons and 12 straight season of 24 wins or more.

Indiana Wesleyan connected on 45.7-percent (21 of 46) of their field goal attempts and 66.7-percent (8 of 12) from distance. IWU also hit their free throws on Saturday at the rate of 84.0-percent (21 of 25).

Fifteen Wildcats saw action today and 14 of them recorded either a point or a rebound. Katrina Blackmon was the only other Wildcat besides Goshert to record double digit points with 13. She was a perfect 5-of-5 from the floor. Brown added nine points and Michelle King hit 6-of-6 free throws for a career-high of 6 points.

Defensively, Indiana Wesleyan limited Marian to 26.1-percent (12 of 46) shooting and 13.3-percent (2 of 15) shooting from 3-point range. Marian committed 21 turnovers compared to only five assists while Indiana Wesleyan ended with 12 steals and four blocked shots.

The Knights’ leading scorer, Lakan Hasser-Smith, was limited to just five points today. She entered play averaging 16.1 points per game and had scored 19.1 points per game in her last 7 contests. Kaela Hunt led the Knights with 8 points today and she has averaged 1.5 points this season.

Indiana Wesleyan returns to Luckey Arena next week with two home games. The first of those will be at 7 p.m. on Wednesday against Huntington (Ind.).