BEREA, Ohio – A hot second half propelled the Baldwin Wallace University women's basketball team to a 70-45 victory over Ohio Northern University in a rescheduled Ohio Athletic Conference game inside Ursprung Gymnasium.
The game, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 30, was postponed due to frigid temperatures and wind chill factors.
BW (15-5, 9-4 OAC) snapped an eight-game regular season losing streak to Ohio Northern (11-9, 5-8 OAC). The last regular season victory over Ohio Northern was January 17, 2015, when the Yellow Jackets defeated the Polar Bears 69-64 in Ada while the last regular season victory at home was December 4, 2013.
Junior Academic All-OAC guard Kasey Hughes (Springboro) led the effort for the Yellow Jackets with a game-high 14 points. Freshman forward Lilly Edwards (Dublin/Coffman) was the only other double-digit scorer of the game with 11 points to go along with her team-leading seven rebounds.
Senior forward Tori Wyss was the leading scorer for the Polar Bears with nine points.
The game got off to slow start on offense as both teams' struggled to find the bottom of the net. Ohio Northern shot 16.7 percent from the floor with both its made field goals being three pointers. Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets had a 26.7 field goal percentage in the period, led by senior Academic All-OAC forward Rachel Womeldorf's (Lewis Center/Olentangy) four points. BW took a 9-6 lead after sophomore forward Sydney Diedrich (Chardon/Gilmour Academy) nailed a three pointer in the waning seconds.
Offense started to heat up a little bit in the second quarter as freshman guard Megan Hensel (Upper Sandusky) drained a trey to cap off a 5-0 run for the the Yellow Jackets. The Polar Bears also began to find a rhythm on offense, however, ripping off a 5-0 run of their own. From the halfway point of the period, both teams traded field goals for a halftime score of 22-16 in favor of BW.
Coming out of the locker room at halftime, the BW offense exploded for a 13-0 run spearheaded by Hughes' hot three-point hand and Edwards' inside presence. On the other side of the floor, Ohio Northern was held scoreless from the 2:36 mark in the second quarter until the halfway point of the third period. A made free throw with 5:48 remaining spurred a 10-0 run for the Polar Bears, forcing a Yellow Jacket timeout. Hughes put a stop to the run with yet another three pointer, sparking some hot shooting from beyond the arc from her fellow teammates. Junior guard Tiffany Bentler (North Canton/Hoover) beat the third-quarter buzzer with a trey from the corner for a 41-28 BW lead.
Womeldorf knocked down just her second three pointer of the season to open up final quarter while three other Yellow Jackets also joined in the action, opening up a 20-point advantage. Although Ohio Northern recovered slightly, the deficit proved to be too much to overcome as BW cruised to the 70-45 victory.
BW will begin a two-game road trip on Saturday, Feb. 2, when the Yellow Jackets travel to take on Wilmington College at 3 p.m. inside Fred Raizk Arena.
