Women's Basketball records third straight win with 60-52 victory over Capital

By: Caleb Scott

ADA -- The Ohio Northern women's basketball team won its third straight game, picking up a 60-52 win over Capital on Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center.

Northern improves its record to 12-3 overall and 5-3 in Ohio Athletic Conference play, while Capital falls to 8-6, 5-3.

Sophomore Carly Thomas paced the Polar Bears, scoring a team-high 16 points and finishing with three assists and two rebounds.

Junior Jordan Kimes added 14 points, four rebounds and three blocks for ONU.

Senior Sara Kocian added eight points and tied her season-high with six rebounds, while senior Taylor Hermiller had seven points, six rebounds and three assists.

The Polar Bears got going early, jumping out to an early 7-1 lead on a three pointer from Kocian.

The Crusaders took their first lead of the night on a free throw by Colleen Fondessy, making the score 15-14 with 11:10 to go in the first half.

Capital would keep the lead the rest of the half, and go into the break holding a 28-26.

ONU opened the second half on a 9-2 run to regain the advantage 35-30 with 16:52 to go in the second half.

The Crusaders would hang around and Kristen Thompson would make a basket to cut the Northern lead to 50-47, with just under four minutes left to play.

Kimes would sink a three with the shot click expiring to push the Polar Bears lead back to 53-47 with 3:18 remaining.

Northern would hold Capital to 2-of-8 in shooting from that point and would grab the win.

The Polar Bears played tough defense all game, holding Capital to 19-of-63 (30.2 percent) shooting and 6-of-24 (25 percent) in three pointers.

ONU finished 23-of-48 (47.9 percent) from the field and shot 5-of-11 (45.5 percent) in three pointers.

"I thought we played much harder in the second half," said head coach Michele Durand. "At halftime, we made the adjustments to get them into playing a half court game and were able to do that. This is a great OAC win."

ONU won the rebounding battle 41-36 and also scored 15 points on 11 Crusader turnovers.

The Polar Bears will be back at it Wednesday night at 7:30 pm, when it travels to take on Wilmington.