No. 15 Women's Basketball wins season opener 95-47 at the Chuck Resler Tournament
By Ashley Birchmeier
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The no. 15 Ohio Northern women's basketball team opened the 2015-16 season with a 95-47 victory over St. Vincent (Pa.) Friday afternoon at the Louis Alexander Palestra in the opening round of the Chuck Reslet Tournament.
The Polar Bears improve to 1-0 overall, while St. Vincent falls to 1-1.
Northern saw 11 different Polar Bears score in the contest, three of which were in double digits.
Senior Carly Thomas led with a game-high 18 points, sophomore Amy Bullimore chipped in 17 points and junior Britt Lauck added 13 points.
The Polar Bears finished the contest 12-of-24 from three, shooting an impressive 50 percent from behind the three point line.
After exchanging points for several minutes the Polar Bear defense went to work forcing five first quarter turnovers en route to the 20-8 advantage.
The Polar Bears extended its lead in the second half as a three from sophomore Courtney Cramer and a lay-up from senior Precious Ramsey would push the ONU lead to 27-10 with 7:10 remaining till halftime.
Northern continued to dominate as Ramsey hit a jumper with 5:50 remaining to spark a 19-5 second quarter run, leading to a 48-17 halftime lead.
ONU shot an impressive 58.6 percent from the field in the first half, while the Bearcats shot just 17.1 percent.
In the third quarter, the Polar Bear offense picked up right where it left off as Thomas, senior Brooke Espenschied and Lauck all made threes to extend the ONU lead to 65-26 with 5:31 remaining.
St. Vincent would make a run of its own led by Katie Ryan to pull the Bearcats within 65-32 with 3:23 remaining in the quarter.
However, the Polar Bears were able to combat the attack finishing the quarter on an 11-1 run led by Bullimore en route to the 76-33 advantage.
The fourth quarter started much of the same as the Polar Bears opened with a 14-0 run to lead to the 95-47 season opening victory.
Saint Vincent was led in the contest by Ryan with 11 points and five rebounds.
Northern's 95 points was the most by any team in Chuck Resler Tournament since the 1996-97 Tournament when Ohio Athletic Conference foe John Carroll did it.
With the win Northern will move on to play in the Championship game Saturday at 6 pm against the winner of Rochester (N.Y.) and Stevenson.