D3hoops.com: Notables

By Matt Florjancic
D3hoops.com

BEREA, Ohio -- Baldwin-Wallace and Wilmington have a history of championship caliber basketball. It was not a huge surprise when both teams won their opening round and semifinal contests to earn a spot in the Ohio Athletic Conference finals Saturday afternoon.

The Yellow Jackets were not only going for the season sweep of the Quakers, they were looking to improve on last season’s one-and-done trip to the conference tournament. Wilmington was trying to make it back-to-back OAC Tournament Championship victories.

Though both teams executed their assignments and played to the end, the Yellow Jackets (26-2) came out with the 74-60 victory, locking up the OAC’s automatic bid to next weekend’s NCAA Tournament. The Lady Quakers must wait until the brackets are announced to find out if their 21-7 season will be good enough for an at-large invitation.

“This one might actually feel even better because [of] the strength of the league this year,” B-W coach Cheri Harrer said of this year’s tournament championship. “The conference was unbelievable, top to bottom. There was not an easy team in the league. For our kids to go through and win both the conference tournament and win the league by a couple games was absolutely unbelievable.

“These kids from day one have just figured out how to win,” she added. “We come out of our first two games shooting like 24 percent from the field and 48 from the free-throw line and found a way to be 2-0. I think it was good for us to win those first two in a tighter fashion because today we didn’t panic when we were in that situation.”

Harrer and the Yellow Jackets won by three points against Heidelberg (58-55) in the quarterfinals and five in the semifinals versus Capital (56-51). Conversely, Wilmington dominated their first two opponents in John Carroll (86-66) and Mount Union (71-47).

Wilmington senior post Katie Streck and her sophomore front-court teammate Kortney Kin gave the Yellow Jackets all they could handle in the first half. A Streck three-pointer from the top of the key with 1:39 to go in the first half made it a three-point game. The Lady Quakers would cut the deficit to one point on a pair of free throws from Kin.

For the game, Streck connected eight of her 12 shots and finished with 19 points. The Josten’s Player of the Year nominee led the team with six rebounds. Kin also sank eight shots. She finished the game with a team-high 21 points before fouling out with 2:33 remaining in the game.

The Yellow Jackets were led in scored by senior Selena Eskinazi-Budge, who had 17 points and handed out three assists. Senior forward Carly Flowers (16 points) and junior Amanda Mondrach (13) were also in double figures for Baldwin-Wallace.

B-W came from behind in the second half to pull out the win. Second-chance shots and controlling rebounds made the comeback possible. The Yellow Jackets held a 42-26 edge on the glass, which included 18 offensive rebounds to just eight for the Lady Quakers.

“We held our own on the boards in the first half,” said Wilmington coach Jerry Scheve. “When they rebound the basketball, they are very, very good. That’s what they did today.

“Their perimeter players go to the boards and they’ve got a 6-3 post player out there that gives us trouble,” he added in reference to Yellow Jacket sophomore post Ariel Brough, who finished with seven rebounds in the B-W victory.
“The other ones are so strong, they muscle their way in. We haven’t been a great rebounding team all year. That was the obvious difference when you look at this game tonight.”

Another difference between the teams came at the foul line. Baldwin-Wallace entered the game connecting on just 66.3 percent of its free-throws, while the Lady Quakers shot better than 75 percent from the charity stripe. With the OAC Championship hanging in the balance, the Yellow Jackets went 19-for-23 from the line, while Wilmington converted 7-of-12 attempts.

Down the stretch, Mondrach sank two of three-pointers, while Eskinazi-Budge and Flowers closed out the game going 7-for-9 from the foul line. Their free throws ballooned a 13-point lead to as much as 19 before Wilmington’s Gina Hyle added two late lay-ups.

“Our free throws down the stretch opened up the lead [and] came off second-chance opportunity shots that they couldn’t box us out for,” Eskinazi-Budge said. “[Amanda] hit some amazing shots today. It just changed the tide. It let us know on the bench and on the floor that we’re not going anywhere.”

“I was in the zone. I just knew what I had to do,” Mondrach said. “We knew through the scouting report, it was going to be hard to get lay-ups, hard to drive on them because they have such good defense. I was anticipating an in-out and I was just confident. The last game, I struggled a little bit with my shots and this game, I was just zoned in.”

“We never fell apart once, even when the score came close and we were down,” concluded Mondrach. “We just pulled together when a lot of teams would pull apart.”