Bowling Green, Ky. - Jenna Smith scored a game-high 21 points and Whitney Toone added 20 off the bench as Illinois ended the 2009-10 Western Kentucky University women's basketball season with a 68-51 win in the first round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament Friday night at Diddle Arena.

Illinois (17-14) will advance to play Marquette in the second round. WKU ends its season with a 21-11 record.

"I have to thank our seniors for their contributions to our program and their leadership throughout this season and their entire careers," said Lady Topper head coach Mary Taylor Cowles. "Unfortunately, tonight was a night were we didn't allow our defense to dictate the tempo. We struggled offensively in the first half, but were not able to feed off our defensive pressure to get back in the game."

WKU shot just 25.8 percent from the field in the first half, and allowed Karisma Penn to score Illinois' first eight points as the Illini did not trail after the first two and a half minutes of the game. In fact, after the Lady Toppers tied the score at 11-11 on a pair of Dominique Duck free throws, Illinois used a 10-3 run to open up a 21-14 lead on a Fabiola Josil three with 11:37 on the clock.

The Lady Toppers again fought back, as after trailing 25-17 they were able to score seven unanswered to again tie the game up at 25-25 after a Keisha Mosley layup with 6:11 to go before intermission. WKU was unable to regain the lead though as a Toone three-point play sparked a 16-2 run as Illinois opened up a 41-27 lead on a pair of Smith free throws with 1:18 to go. In fact, WKU went without a field goal for over six minutes before Kenzie Rich hit a three at the buzzer to cut the deficit to 41-30 at intermission.

Toone paced the Illini with 18 points in the first half, while Smith added nine and Penn eight. Duck led the Lady Toppers with nine points at intermission.

WKU fell down by 17 points with 12 minutes to go in the second half - its largest deficit of the game - but used an 8-0 run to make it a 54-45 game on a Duck layup with 7:53 remaining. The Lady Toppers would get as close as eight (56-48) as Duck knocked down a pair of free throws with 5:50 to go. That would be as close as WKU would get, however, as the Illini quickly pushed the lead back to double figures, and scored the last six points of the game to stretch the final margin to 17.

Duck finished with a team-high 13 points in the final game of her career, while Hope Brown added 10 points off the bench. Arnika Brown ripped down a game-high 15 rebounds to tie Crystal Kelly for the WKU single-season rebounding record with 357. Penn joined Smith and Toone in double figures for Illinois with 11 points.