MEADVILLE, Pa. - The Wittenberg Tigers appear to be making the necessary strides to not only be competitive in the North Coast Athletic Conference, but actually contend for a fourth straight regular season title. Wittenberg took a huge step toward that goal Saturday with a 66-55 victory over homestanding Allegheny.

The win, Wittenberg's 29th in 31 all-time meetings with the Gators and the seventh straight since Feb. 2, 2002, pushed the Tigers above the .500 mark for the first time this season at 7-6 overall. More importantly, Wittenberg improved to 3-1 in the NCAC to set up a huge early-season showdown with unbeaten Kenyon in the HPER Center on Wednesday, Jan. 12. Allegheny, last season's regular season and tournament runner-up to Wittenberg, dropped to 8-5 overall but just 1-4 in the conference.

The Tigers trailed for much of the early part of the game before a 13-2 run between 9:59 and 5:12 of the first half put Wittenberg in control. During that burst, Wittenberg six points from instant-offense freshman guard Ellie Stonecash. After leading by nine at halftime, the Tigers slowly pulled away in the final 20 minutes, getting 11 points along the way from senior guard Emilie Schmid. The team's two seniors, Schmid and guard Alison Nahrup, both made significant contributions despite extensive travels during the weekend as they took a teachers' education exam on Saturday morning after playing Friday night in the win over Hiram.

Schmid finished with 15 points, just one off the team lead established by freshman post Katie Gregorevich, who topped the Tigers with 16 points and nine rebounds. Also of note was the play of Stonecash, who had a career-high 10 points in just 13 minutes off the bench, sophomore post Kathy Hittle, who was steady as usual with eight points and seven rebounds, and freshman post Ali Rohlfs, who added six points, four assists, three steals and three rebounds. She was starting in place of injured sophomore post Rachel Clark-Haggy, who had been in the lineup for much of the season until suffering an ankle injury in the Friday night over Hiram.

Allegheny got a game-high 18 points from Meredith McDonough and 16 points from Caitlin Murtagh, but the Gators shot just 30 percent from the field, including 1-of-10 from three-point range. Wittenberg, by contrast, hit 51 percent from the field, although the Tigers were also off the mark from long range with a 1-of-7 performance.