No. 21 Women's Basketball falls in First Round of NCAA III Tournament to No. 22 Transylvania (Ky.) 79-71

By: Andrew Korba

| NCAA III Tournament Webpage |

GREENCASTLE (Ind.) -- The No. 21-ranked Ohio Northern women's basketball team saw its season come to a close at the hands of No. 22 Transylvania (Ky.) in the First Round of the NCAA III Tournament by a 79-71 score on Friday evening at Neal Fieldhouse on the campus of DePauw (Ind.) University.

The Polar Bears see their season end at 23-6, while the Pioneers move to 26-2.

Transy advanced to the second round, where it will play No. 3 DePauw on Saturday.

Junior Jordan Kimes led ONU, scoring a game-high 25 points on 10-of-14 shooting. She also pulled down a team best eight rebounds.

Sophomore Carly Thomas added 16 points, going 4-of-7 in 3-pointers.

After Northern took the lead in the second half, the Pioneers used a 14-0 run to open up a 66-58 lead.

A jumper by senior Cenzie Yoder trimmed the Pioneers lead to 71-68 with 1:58 left in the game.

Transy would score the next four points, but a three by junior Kaitlyn Theisen cut the ONU deficit to 75-71 with 1:11 to go.

Theisen would finish the game with a season best effort of nine points.

The Polar Bears would come up empty on its next possession and the Pioneers went 4-of-4 from the charity stripe in the final 40 second of the game, putting it away.

"I thought it was a good game," said head coach Michele Durand. "We couldn't get some stops when we needed to and had problems executing at some points."

Transy opened up an early 13-8 lead and pushed the lead to 20-12.

But Northern responded with a 8-2 run to cut the deficit to 22-20 with 8:01 left in the first half, with senior Sara Kocian and Theisen draining 3-pointers.

The Pioneers would hold the lead for the half and take a 31-27 lead into the break.

ONU came out strong in the second half, using a 13-4 run to jump in front 40-35 with with 16:57 remaining. Kimes scored eight points during the spurt.

3-pointers on back-to-back possessions capped an 8-2 Polar Bear run and made the score 48-42 with just under 14 minutes to play.

"We were aggressive on both ends during that second half stretch," said Kimes. "We were able to get out into transition and knock down our shots."

The Polar Bears finished 27-of-65 (41.5 percent) from the field and 13-of-28 in 3-pointers (46.4 percent).

Transylvania went 27-of-64 (42.2 percent) in shooting and was 4-of-11 (36.4 percent) from beyond the arc. The Pioneers also went 21-of-22 (95.5 percent) in free throws.

The Pioneers won the rebounding battle 41-36.

"Our seniors stepped up this season," added Durand. "We are going to miss their leadership. We have a lot of good players coming back and have a bright future ahead of us."