WC opens tourney play
with win over Mount Union

Five Lady Quakers reach double figures

|Box Score|

February 21, 2006

Five players reached double figures as Wilmington College got past Mount Union, 81-68, in an Ohio Athletic Conference quarterfinal game Tuesday at Fred Raizk Arena. The No. 3 seed Lady Quakers will travel to Bexley Thursday to face No. 2 seed Capital, which beat No. 7 Ohio Northern, 59-47, in another quarterfinal game Tuesday. In the other quarterfinals, No. 1 Baldwin-Wallace defeated No. 8 Heidelberg, 80-47; and No. 4 Otterbein held off No. 5 John Carroll, 89-81. Otterbein will play at Baldwin-Wallace in Thursday's other semifinal. Both games will start at 7:30 p.m.

Every member of Wilmington's starting lineup reached double figures Tuesday as the Lady Quakers opened both halves with huge spurts, then held off the feisty Purple Raiders. Junior post Kelly Peters (Spencerville) scored 10 points in the game's first seven minutes as Wilmington opened a 21-8 lead and appeared headed for a blowout win. But the Raiders, who lost two close games to Wilmington in the regular season, clawed their way back into the game and reduced the deficit to 33-30 on Lauren Friedrich's trey with 15 seconds remaining in the half. Wilmington point guard Sam Hood (Lockbourne/Teays Valley) found Erica Smith (Union/Northmont) wide open for a three-pointer that put WC up six at the half.

"I thought Erica's three at the end of the half was huge, to give us that six-point lead after they'd cut it all the way down to three," WC head coach Jerry Scheve said. "And then we came out to start the second half and kind of ran a clinic the first five or six minutes."

Jackie Hauke (Sardinia/Whiteoak) hit a three-pointer to open the second half and the Lady Quakers were rolling. Wilmington scored on its first eight possessions of the half in a 20-0 run that ended on Gina Hyle's jumper that gave the Lady Quakers a 56-30 lead at 15:29. Mount Union, led by senior Kyla Hogan's 27 points, refused to go away. The Raiders cut the deficit to 60-44 with 11:36 to play.

"We got off to a great start in both halves and, for whatever reason, got sloppy and they got back into the game," Scheve said. "But you've got to give credit to Mount Union. That team fights as hard as anybody we've ever played. Kyla Hogan's been around four years, and she's always been a good player, but this year she has established herself as one of the two or three premier players in the league that we've played. She never gives up and their team never gave up. I was real happy with how our team played against a quality opponent."

Wilmington looked inside to Peters and Smith and the lead quickly went back to 20. The Raiders eventually cut Wilmington's lead to 11 in the final three minutes, but the end result had already been determined.

The Lady Quakers ended the game a rebound and an assist from having three double-doubles. Katie Streck (Dayton/Carroll) was a force inside, scoring 15 points and collecting 10 rebounds. Peters scored team-high 20 points and pulled down nine rebounds, just missing her ninth double-double of the season, and Hood scored 10 points and handed out nine assists. Hauke and Smith hit a pair of treys each en route to 11- and 10-point performances, respectively, but Wilmington did most of its damage inside with Peters and Streck.

"Something good usually happens when they get touches inside. It's been happening all year," Scheve said. "But what you have to remember is that it takes somebody to get the ball inside to them. We have a very unselfish team. We've led the OAC in assists all year and had 15 of them tonight, starting with Sam's nine. Sam's numbers tonight are what they were early in the year. That's what we're looking for from her — a really solid floor game, knocking down open shots and making good passes to her teammates. And she played a great defensive game."

Hyle (Lawrenceburg, Ind./McAuley) and Amy Starks (Greenville) scored seven and five points, respectively, in strong efforts off the WC bench. Thursday's Wilmington-Capital game will be the re-match of a 2004 OAC semifinal won by the Lady Quakers on what became a run to the national championship. This season, each team won on the opposing squad's floor.

"This is what it's all about. It's time to step it up," Scheve said. "Capital is ranked in the top 10 in the country. They're going to be very tough. We haven't figured out how to stop Sara Heitkamp in the past four years, hopefully we're going to figure it out in the next 48 hours."