Tigers Can't Hold Second Half Lead, Fall At Baldwin-Wallace In NCAA First Round

BEREA, Ohio - Early in the 2002-03 women's basketball season, the Wittenberg Tigers ventured north for a nonconference battle with nationally ranked Baldwin-Wallace and came away stung by a 79-53 defeat. What a difference three months makes. While the end result - a loss, this time by a 64-57 count, to the Yellow Jackets - was the same, this time Wittenberg had its fate in its own hands deep into the game.

The stakes were considerably higher this time around, and the Tigers were up to the test much of the night. After staking the Yellow Jackets to a 33-26 halftime lead, Wittenberg fought back with a 16-7 run to open the second half and take a 42-40 lead at the 13:29 mark on a lay-up by senior guard Stephanie Campbell (South Charleston, Ohio/Southeastern). In the previous meeting, B-W crushed Wittenberg in the second half after taking a 38-27 advantage into the locker room.

Wittenberg stretched its lead to as much as 49-44 after junior forward Haley Warden (Loveland, Ohio/Indian Hill) canned a long three-pointer with 9:22 remaining in the game. At that point, things were looking rosy for the visitors, as B-W was struggling to find an offensive rhythm and had its top two post players in foul trouble. But the Yellow Jackets responded like a team that had been through this before. Led by a group of seniors that has made two trips to the national quarterfinals in the past four years, B-W tied the game at 51 with 6:43 remaining and then pulled away at the free throw line, hitting eight straight from the charity stripe in the final 6:03 while Wittenberg went cold from the field, missing six of its final nine shots from the field.

With its win, B-W improved to 25-4 overall and extended its home winning streak to 24 straight games while snapping Wittenberg had its 19-game win streak snapped. With the loss, Wittenberg, the North Coast Athletic Conference champion, ends its season at 24-5 overall.

Wittenberg was led offensively by senior forward Tiffany Keller (Massillon, Ohio/Tuslaw) with 12 points. Warden and Campbell added 10 each for the Tigers, who won the rebounding battle 32-27 and forced 26 B-W turnovers in the game. But unfortunately Wittenberg shot just 37 percent from the field, including a 3-for-14 performance from three-point range, and leading scorer Kate Rolf (Ft. Wayne, Ind./Carroll) was held to just three points on 1-of-9 shooting from the floor.