GAMBIER, Ohio - After winning eight straight games and 12 of the last 13 to take a strangehold of the 2005-06 North Coast Athletic Conference regular season title chase, it is conceivable that the Wittenberg Tigers were due for an off night. They had one Wednesday at Kenyon as the 2006 NCAC regular season champions succombed to the 2005 NCAC regular season titlists, 72-58.
The loss dropped Wittenberg, which has already clinched a share of the NCAC regular season championship, to 17-7 overall and 13-2 in the NCAC. The Tigers remain a game ahead of second-place Allegheny, which wrapped up its regular season with a 13-3 conference mark on Wednesday with a win over Hiram, and Wittenberg can clinch the title outright with a home win on Saturday in the HPER Center against Wooster. Kenyon, the preseason conference favorite which lost at Wittenberg last month by eight points, improved to 18-6 overall and 10-5 in the NCAC.
The Tigers posted one of their best shooting percentages of the season, hitting 50 percent, but a huge discrepancy in turnovers (23 by Wittenberg compared to 13 by Kenyon) and free throws (11-of-16 for the Tigers compared to 24-of-30 for the Ladies) were key to the outcome. Despite leading for most of the first 15 minutes of the game, sloppy ball handling on the perimeter and foul problems on the interior combined to give Kenyon too many opportunities and the Ladies cashed in, moving out to a four-point halftime lead. They maintained at least a four-point advantage throughout the final 20 minutes.
A 7-0 run opened the game up for Kenyon after Wittenberg had closed to 55-51 with 4:41 left in the game on a basket by sophomore post Katie Gregorevich. She and junior wing Megan Miller finished with eight points each in support of the Tigers' leading scorer, junior post Kathy Hittle, who finished with 19 points and four rebounds. Hittle hit 7-of-9 shots from the field and 5-of-6 from the free throw line, but it was not enough.
Kenyon picked up a game-high 23 points from Katy Zeanah, leading four players in double figures.