Kimes, Saine lead No. 8 Women's Basketball past Adrian (Mich.) in home opener

By: Andrew Korba

ADA -- Junior Jordan Kimes scored 18 points and grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds and junior Becca Saine added a career best 14 points to lead the No. 8 Ohio Northern women's basketball team to a 90-67 win over Adrian (Mich.) in its home opener on Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center.

The Polar Bears remain perfect and move to 4-0 on the season, while the Bulldogs fall to 2-2.

Northern has now won 27 consecutive regular season games, dating back to last season.

Kimes went 8-of-10 from the field and Saine was 4-of-6, including 3-of-5 in three pointers.

Senior Cenzie Yoder added 16 points and nine rebounds.

ONU never trailed and came out strong, jumping out to a 10-0 lead just 3:30 in the game, capped off on a layup from senior Taylor Hermiller.

Hermiller would finish the game with a season-high eight points.

Saine scored six points and Hermiller added four to spur a 10-0 run, giving the Polar Bears a 40-17 advantage late in the first half.

Northern took a 47-26 lead into the break.

The Bulldogs would cut the Northern lead to 55-39 with just over 14 minutes remaining, but ONU scored the next eight points to push its lead back to 63-39 to put the game away.

"Today was a great team effort," said head coach Michele Durand. "We are a really deep team. It was not surprising that our bench gave us the effort that they did."

ONU was 32-of-64 (50 percent) from the field and 5-of-14 (35.7 percent) in three pointers, while Adrian was 19-of-63 (30.2 percent) in shooting and 5-of-21 (23.8 percent) from beyond the arc.

Northern won the rebounding battle 52-38 and also held a 53-34 advantage in bench scoring.

Ohio Northern will return to action on December 4, when it opens OAC play with a trip to Baldwin Wallace at 7:30.