No. 10 Women's Basketball falls at No. 19 Baldwin Wallace 66-62 in overtime thriller
By Brandt Marshall
BEREA — The 10th-ranked Ohio Northern women's basketball team fell in overtime on the road at 19th-ranked Baldwin Wallace in a battle of the top two teams in the Ohio Athletic Conference on Wednesday night at Ursprung Gymnasium.
The loss ended the Polar Bears' 4-game win streak and dropped them to 19-3 overall and 13-2 in the OAC, while the Yellow Jackets improved to 19-3, 12-3.
Northern still leads BW by one game in the OAC regular season standings with three games remaining to play.
Junior Kristen Luersman (Fort Jennings) led ONU with 18 points to go with seven rebounds.
Senior Brynn Serbin (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny) stuffed the stat sheet with a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double and added six assists and four steals. She now needs just seven steals to surpass the program record for career steals.
Fellow senior Kasey Knippen (Ottoville) chipped in nine points and sophomore Brooke Allen (Woodville/Woodmore) added eight points and four boards.
Megan Hensel led a quartet of BW scorers in double figures with 13 points.
A tightly contested game from wire-to-wire saw Northern jump out to a 12-11 lead at the end of the 1st quarter as Serbin led the way early for ONU with three points and three rebounds.
The visitors controlled a low scoring second quarter to take a 21-19 lead into the break. Luersman scored five of the Polar Bears' nine second quarter points.
ONU used a 15-4 run to open the second half to grab a 36-23 lead with 2:36 remaining in the 3rd, but the hosts would respond with a 9-1 run to close out the quarter and narrow the Polar Bear lead to 37-32.
Another quick start in the fourth quarter gave Northern a 44-32 lead with just 2:24 gone. BW again responded with a run of its own and erased the visitors lead on a pair of Emily Irwin free throws to tie the score at 46-46 with 2:44 left.
A Serbin and-1 gave Northern a 53-51 with 50 seconds remaining. BW would then make a triple and a free throw to lead 55-53 with just 21 seconds left. Luersman would hit a layup with 8 seconds to go to force overtime.
Sophomore Abi Akamine (Lahaina, Hawaii/Lahainaluna) drilled a triple to give Northern a 60-57 lead with just 3:10 remaining in OT.
Hensel would hit a triple to break a 60-all tie with 45 seconds left and made a pair from the stripe with 15 seconds left to put the Yellow Jackets on top 65-62.
Luersman missed a 3-pointer with 12 seconds remaining and Regan Schill made a free throw with nine ticks left to extend BW's lead to 66-62.
Ohio Northern made 25-of-68 field goals for 36.8% and was 3-of-12 from 3-point range for 25%, while Baldwin Wallace made 20-of-57 field goals for 35.1% and was 9-of-34 from beyond the arc for 26.5%.
ONU was 9-of-12 from the free-throw line for 75%, and BW was 17-of-26 for 65.4%.
The Yellow Jackets out-rebounded Northern by a 43-39 margin.
The Polar Bears return to action on Saturday in the second game of a double-header against John Carroll at 4 pm at the ONU Sports Center.