BEREA, OHIO -- Freshman center Chelsea Meckstrom scored a team-high 12 points as the Wilmington College women's basketball team upset first place Baldwin Wallace University, 61-53, today (Saturday, January 29, 2011) in an Ohio Athletic Conference game in the Rudolph Ursprung Gymnasium in the Lou Higgins Center in Berea . This was the first game of a women's and men's doubleheader. The Yellow Jacket and Quaker men tip off at 4:00 p.m.
With its win, Wilmington won its fifth straight game and improved to 10-9 overall and 7-5 in the OAC. BW, now 15-4 overall and 10-2 in the OAC, was led by sophomore guard Rachel Rossman's (Olmsted Falls) career-high 13 points. The Yellow Jacket loss ended a five-game winning streak.
In the first half, Wilmington senior guard Olivia Waters made one of two foul shots to open the scoring, BW freshman guard Jessica Lairson (Louisville) then scored four straight point to give the Yellow Jackets a 4-1 lead at the 17:56 mark. Wilmington then came back and scored the next 10 points to retake the lead at 11-4 with 10:01 left. Lairson, who had 11 points, ended the drought at 9:54 with a jumper and then sophomore guard Jessica Carpenter (North Canton/Hoover) made a three-pointer at 9:36 to make the score 11-9.
Following a Quaker basket, BW freshman forward Lexi Rohrbach (Tiffin/ Columbian) grabbed a rebound and scored and on its next possession Rossman made two foul shots to tie the game at 13-13 with 7:47 left.
A 6-3 run by the Quakers gave them back the lead at 19-16 before Rohrbach made a pair of foul shots at 5:18 to make the score 19-18. A three-pointer by Wilmington senior guard Amy Bricker at 4:43 and a jumper by Waters at 4:02 gave the Quakers a 24-18 lead. Another 4-2 run, capped by a Meckstrom layup at 2:33, gave Wilmington its largest lead at 28-20. A basket by Lairson at 2:08 was the final points of the first stanza.
In the second half, BW opened with a 5-0 run as Lairson canned a trey at 18:51 and Rossman stole the inbounds pass and fed Carpenter for a layup at 18:38 to cut Wilmington's lead to 28-27. BW then scored eight of the next 14 points to take a 35-34 lead at the 15:13 mark when Rossman made a jump shot.
Undaunted, Wilmington regained the lead at 44-35 with 10 straight points before Head Coach Cheri Harrer called a timeout. A 6-2 run by BW cut the lead to 46-41, but the Quakers came right back with four points of their own to push it back to a nine-point lead at 50-41.
BW would then outscore Wilmington 9-5 to get as close as 55-50 with 32.2 seconds left when sophomore guard Olivia French (Bucyrus/ Colonel Crawford) made a three-pointer. Then following two made and two missed foul shots by the Quakers, French canned another triple to make the score 57-53 with 12.8 seconds left. But a four Quaker foul shots then ended matters.
Today's game was taped and will be televised by SportsTime Ohio tonight at 6:00 p.m. The BW versus Wilmington men's game will air at 8:00 p.m.
The Yellow Jackets are back in action on Wednesday, February 2 when they travel to Westerville to play Otterbein University in the Rike Center at 7:30 p.m. In addition, fans can listen to all of the action on either campus radio station WBW, 88.3 FM, or via the WBW Internet web site at www.wBW.com
FOR MORE SPORTS INFORMATION, please contact Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327 and e-mail at kruple@bw.edu or Assistant SID Jeff Miller by phone at 440-826-2780 and email at jefmille@bw.edu. Fans can access the latest BW athletics information at www.BWyellowjackets.com and we invite you to join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bwyellowjackets and Twitter at http://twitter.com/bwathletics.
