Bullimore and Dirksen guide No. 10 Women's Basketball to 61-55 overtime victory over Baldwin Wallace
By Caleb Scott
ADA — Senior Amy Bullimore (Morrow/Little Miami) and junior Jenna Dirksen (Beavercreek/Carroll) led the charge offensively as the No. 10-ranked Ohio Northern women's basketball team defeated Baldwin Wallace 61-55 on Wednesday evening at the ONU Sports Center.
With their 13th consecutive victory, the Polar Bears move to 13-1 overall and remain a perfect 7-0 in Ohio Athletic Conference play, while the Yellow Jackets fall to 8-6, 4-3.
Bullimore led the way with her sixth consecutive double-double, scoring a game-best 22 points and grabbing a game-high 13 rebounds.
The senior now ranks fourth all-time on ONU's all-time scoring list with 1,220 points and is 22 points shy of tying Morgan Dumbaugh for the most points scored in Polar Bear history.
Bullimore also climbed within 39 rebounds of becoming Northern's all-time leading rebounder.
Dirksen scored 16 points for Northern and added three rebounds, two assists and two steals, while senior Lindsey Black (Urbana/Graham) tallied 12 points for ONU.
A jumper from Dirksen with 3:58 remaining in the first quarter gave ONU its biggest lead of the evening as it opened a 13-3 lead.
From there, the Yellow Jackets would use a 9-4 run to close out the quarter to cut the lead to 17-12.
After junior Alyssa Manley (Lima/Bath) found Bullimore for a jumper on the opening possession of the second quarter, BW scored 10 unanswered points to grab a 22-19 lead with 7:00 minutes left in the second quarter.
BW would stretch its lead to as many as six points before Black hit a free throw with three seconds left in the half to cut the deficit to 29-24 at the intermission.
Just over three minutes minutes into the second half, BW would open its biggest lead of the evening following a 3-pointer to take a 37-28 lead.
Northern would pull within one point on numerous occasions before the Yellow Jackets hit a buzzer-beating jumper at the end of the third quarter to take a 43-40 lead into the fourth period.
After BW opened the fourth quarter with a layup, Northern used an 8-0 run capped off by a Bullimore layup to regain the lead at 48-45 with 5:59 left in the contest.
With ONU holding a 50-49 advantage, the Yellow Jackets hit a huge 3-pointer with 1:34 left in regulation to take a 52-50 lead.
Bullimore's jumper from the elbow with 31 seconds left would prove to be the final bucket of regulation, forcing the contest to go into overtime.
The overtime period was all ONU as the Polar Bears opened the period scoring the first nine points to grab a 61-52 lead with six seconds remaining in the contest.
BW would hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds but could not get any closer as Northern went on to win.
Northern was 23-of-53 (43.4 percent) from the field, including 1-for-9 (11.1 percent) from the 3-point line, while the Yellow Jackets were 19-of-55 (34.5 percent) from the field, including 8-of-25 (32..0 percent) from 3-point range.
ONU won the rebounding battle by a 41-30 margin.
The Polar Bears return to action on Saturday afternoon as they travel to New Concord to take on Muskingum at 3 pm.
