MARIETTA, Ohio – Marietta College earned their way into the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament Championship with a defeat of Baldwin Wallace University Thursday (Feb. 23) evening in the semifinal round. The Pioneers improve to 20-6 on the season, while the Yellow Jackets fall to 22-5 and will hope to receive an at-large bid to continue on with their season.
No. 2 seeded Marietta will travel to top-seeded Ohio Northern University, a narrow 52-51 winner over Otterbein in the semifinals, on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. for the tournament championship.
"We were playing hard and playing smart in the first half," Marietta head coach
Kole Vivian said. "But we looked up and were down six close to end of the half. I felt that if we could keep it there, we were in pretty good shape. We got rolling in the second half. We started to hit our shots. Hahn was unbelievable out there. And we hit our free throws, which has been our bug-a-boo this season. We just competed really hard and did a great job against a great team."
Both teams struggled to get into a rhythm as the game began, but the Yellow Jackets put the first buckets in to jump out to a 4-0 lead. The Pioneers would score the next seven points on shots from
Hannah Kroft (Marietta, Ohio/Marietta),
Makenzie Wilson (Wapakoneta, Ohio/Wapakoneta), and
Ally Grake (Morrow, Ohio/Little Miami) and Marietta enjoyed their first lead of the contest. Kroft's layup and subsequent bonus free throw extended the lead to four with two minutes left, but Baldwin Wallace closed out the period on a 5-0 run to take 11-10 lead going into the second period.
The two teams traded shots for the first few moments of the second stanza but the Yellow Jackets took control as Carolyn Wochele nailed two consecutive threes and BW found themselves with a five-point lead with 6:34 remaining in the half.
Devin Hefner (Parkersburg, W.Va./Parkersburg South) took matters into her own hands has she aggressively attacked the paint on two consecutive possessions and made both layups, tacking on a bonus free throw on the second to tie the game at 19. Emily Irwin's three-pointer with two minutes remaining pushed the lead to back to six, but a pair of
Erin Hahn (Louisville, Ohio/Louisville) layups closed out half and the Pioneers trailed by only two, 28-26, at the half.
The Pioneers started to attack the paint in the second half, going on an 8-0 run to begin the third period. Layups from Kroft,
Madison Cecil (Centerburg, Ohio/Highland), and
Paige Tolson (Guysville, Ohio/Federal Hocking) expanded the lead to four and Hefner's mid-range jumper put the score at 34-28.
Hannah Schill's (Rootstown, Ohio/Archbishop Hoban) pull up jumper at the 3:17 mark kept the lead at seven and the Pioneers would take a 45-40 in the final period.
BW's Irwin did everything she could to keep the Yellow Jackets into the game, scoring 13 points in the quarter. She hit two consecutive jumpers to cut the lead to one point with 8:02 left in the game. The Pioneers put together one of the finest performances of the season from the foul line. The Pioneers went 18-of-21 from the charity stripe in the quarter, seemingly shutting down every comeback attempt by BW. Hahn's offensive rebound and putback off of a missed free throw with 4:22 remaining pushed the lead to six and the Yellow Jackets were beginning to run out of time. The Yellow Jackets were not able to get any closer than two and the clutch Pioneer free throw shooting clinched the contest. The Pioneers won with a final score of 71-65.
Hefner and Hahn led the Pioneers with 17 points apiece, with Hahn pulling down 10 rebound. Kroft was perfect from the paint, hit all four of her shots for a 10-point effort.
Camille Cummins (MIddlefield, Ohio/Cardinal) pulled down nine rebounds.
Irwin led all scorers with a massive 29-point performance, shooting 6-of-12 from three-point range. Wochele came off the bench to provide 12 points in a losing effort.
Fans can follow all of the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
