Gaydos
Swary
The Tigers used a 16-1 second-half run to bury the visiting Denison Big Red 65-43 on Saturday to claim their first outright conference crownsince 1998. The win improved Wittenberg to 19-5 overall and 14-2 in the NCAC, the team's best conference record since 1999, when the Tigers shared the regular season title with Ohio Wesleyan with matching 14-2 marks.
Winners of eight regular season NCAC championships in 13 years as members of the conference, Wittenberg now enters the NCAC tournament as the No.1 seed and will likely host the conference tournament semifinals and finals. Wittenberg hosts No. 8 seed Wooster on Tuesday at 5: 30 p.m., and if the Tigers win they will host the semifinals on Thursday at 5:30 and 7:45 p.m. and the finals on Saturday at 4 p.m. A win on Tuesday would have the added significance of being the 300th career win for Tiger Head Coach Pam Smith. Her career record heading into the tourney is 299-128. The Tigers started the week by doing some heavy lifting in an 81-61 win at Oberlin that clinched a share of the NCAC regular season championship on Wednesday.
Wittenberg slowly pulled away during the first half and then maintained a double-digit lead through most of the second half. All five starters finished in double figures for the Tigers, led by senior guard Meghan Gaydos (Concord, Ohio/Mentor Lake Catholic) and her career-high 14 points. Gaydos was efficient with a 4-for-6 performance from the field, including 2-for-3 from three-point range and 4-for-4 from the free throw line. Also in double figures were senior forward Jill Swary (Columbus, Ohio/Grandview) with 12 points, junior guards Kate Rolf (Ft. Wayne, Ind./Carroll) and Stephanie Campbell (South Charleston, Ohio/Southeastern) with 11 points apiece, and junior forward Tiffany Keller (Massillon, Ohio/Tuslaw) with 10.
Rolf
Tiffany Keller
Then on Saturday, escaped a close game against Denison with the aforementioned 16-1 run midway through the second half to capture the NCAC regular season championship outright. The Tigers, who improved to 19-5 overall and 14-2 in the NCAC with the win, put away Denison by a final of 65-43.
The Tigers pulled out to a 34-20 lead by halftime by holding the Big Red to just 22 percent shooting from the field. For the game, Denison was limited to just 24.6 percent shooting, the primary difference in a game that was otherwise fairly well played. Wittenberg topped its visitors on the boards by five, but the difference was that Wittenberg shot 39 percent from the floor and 73.7 percent from the free throw line.
The game was still a close one after Denison opened the second half with an 8-0 run and pulled to within five points at 40-35. But the Tigers responded with five straight points from Campbell en route to a 16-1 run that broke the game open. Campbell, who shared scoring honors with Rolf, finished the game with 11 points to lead the Tigers. Both also had five rebounds. Also turning in a strong offensive game was junior forward/center Rebecca Meers (Moline, Ill./Moline), who dropped in nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field and 3-of-4 from the line.
Three seniors were honored before the game - Gaydos, Swary and guard Jen Korsberg (Dayton, Wash./Dayton).