Women's Basketball: Ohio Northern (7-7 Overall) at #14 John Carroll (11-2 Overall) - OAC Tournament Semifinals
Thursday, March 4, 2021, 7 p.m. - DeCarlo Varsity Center, University Heights, Ohio
Thursday's Preview: The Polar Bears are the No. 7 seed in this week's OAC Tournament and will travel to No. 1-seed and No. 14-ranked John Carroll on Thursday for the Semifinals at the DeCarlo Center ... Limited fans will be allowed to attend the games as determined by the OAC's COVID-19 policy ... Ohio Northern won 61-44 at No. 2 seed Otterbein on Tuesday in the Quarterfinals after posting a 73-34 First Round victory over No. 10 seed Heidelberg at the ONU Sports Center on Monday ... Against OU, Northern opened the fourth quarter with a 12-0 run to take a commanding 54-36 lead ... Junior Kate Iliff and freshman Kasey Knippen had 12 points each and junior Annie Weckesser had 10 points ... Senior Sydney Ward leads the team in scoring at 8.0 ppg ... She also leads the team and is 6th in the OAC with an average of 6.8 rebounds per contest ... Sophomore Brynn Serbin is 2nd in scoring at 7.6 ppg, and leads the team with 30 assists and 24 steals ... Iliff is 3rd on the team in scoring at 7.2 ppg ... Northern leads the OAC in scoring defense, allowing only 54.7 ppg, and in turnovers, committing only 14.4 per game ... Ohio Northern is gunning for its fifth OAC Tournament title ... The Polar Bears won the crown in 2017, 2013, 1988 and 1986 ... Northern has also been runner-up six times ... Tonight's ONU-JCU winner will advance to the Finals on Saturday ... The seeds for the OAC Tournament were determined by a weighted system that factors in a team's winning percentage (2/3) and its opponents' winning percentage (1/3) ... The Blue Streaks are the No. 1 seed in this week's OAC Tournament after winning the OAC Regular Season title with a 10-2 record ... JCU defeated No. 8 seeded Wilmington 83-53 in the Quarterfinals on Tuesday ... Olivia Nagy scored 17 points and Nicole Heffington, Dani Carlson and Jaylen Hoffman added 13 points each against the Quakers ... JCU leads the OAC in rebounding margin at +7.0 and in blocks per game at 6.1 bpg ... Heffington leads the team and is third in the OAC in scoring at 17.4 ppg ... Nagy is second on the team in scoring at 12.9 ppg ... She also leads the OAC with 34 blocked shots and is second in the OAC with a team-best 9.8 rpg rebounding average.
ONU Statistical Leaders:
| Scoring | Rebounding | 3FGs | Assists | Steals | ||||||||||||||
| 1. | Ward | 8.0 | 1. | Ward | 6.8 | 1. | Serbin | 16 | 1. | Serbin | 30 | 1. | Serbin | 24 | ||||
| 2. | Serbin | 7.6 | 2. | Iliff | 5.4 | 2. | Brock | 14 | 2. | Weckesser | 26 | 2. | Weckesser | 21 | ||||
| 3. | Iliff | 7.2 | 3. | Luersman | 5.3 | 3. | Hale | 10 | 3. | Jacobs | 23 | 3. | Hale | 19 | ||||
| Iliff | 10 |
All-Time Series: Ohio Northern leads the all-time series between the two schools by a 43-29 margin ... ONU is 30-11 at home and is 20-18 at University Heights ... The teams split the regular season games this season with ONU winning 68-53 at home and falling 55-52 at JCU ... This is the third consecutive year that the two teams have met in the OAC Tournament with JCU winning the two previous games ... ONU is 2-5 all-time against JCU in the OAC Tournamernt.
Head Coach Mark Huelsman: Huelsman is in his first season at ONU with a 7-7 record, a winning percentage of .500.