By Steven Wright

ADA — Top-seeded and No. 11-ranked Ohio Northern captured its 16th Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament Championship Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center by coming from behind in every game to win 32-30, 30-28, 30-24 over third-seed Heidelberg.

The victory was ONU’s third over Heidelberg this season as the Polar Bears improve to 27-6, while the Student Princes fall to 26-10.

The Polar Bears came back from their largest deficit in Game 3 after the Student Princes shot out to a commanding 9-1 advantage.

Heidelberg held a comfortable lead for most of the game, but with the score 18-13 in favor of HC, Ohio Northern rattled off five consecutive points to tie the game thanks to three kills from Laura Vuyk and two kills from Samantha Markham.

The game continued to go back and forth until the Polar Bears took their first lead at 22-21.

ONU outscored HC 8-3 from that point to claim the championship.

Northern scored six of the last seven points, including the last two on kills from Liz Schnelle, with the score 29-26 in Game 1 to complete the comeback.

The Polar Bears saw a similar situation in Game 2 down 27-23 only to go on a 7-1 run to finish the game.

Schnelle led all players with 21 kills in the match, giving her 526 on the season and putting her four away from owning the ONU single-season record.

She also recorded a double-double with 11 digs and added two blocks and an ace.

Vuyk had 11 kills and six digs in her final OAC action.

Abby Schaller had nine kills while Markham and Melissa Goodman each recorded eight.

Setter Katie Weininger also recorded a double-double, dishing out 45 assists and recording 11 digs.

Libero Mandi Fought was the only other Polar Bear with double-digit digs, leading the defensive attack with 26 digs.

On top of accepting both the OAC Regular Season and Tournament Championship trophies today, five Polar Bears earned All-OAC awards.

Weininger, Schnelle and Vuyk were all selected as First Team All-OAC while Markham garnered Honorable Mention honors.

Goodman added to the honors and was selected as OAC Freshman of the Year.

Ohio Northern earned the OAC’s automatic bid to the NCAA III Tournament and will find out Monday afternoon the site and opponent.