Wittenberg Rallies In Second Half For Road Win Over Thomas More

CRESTVIEW HILLS, Ky. - In a game of spurts, the Wittenberg University Tigers put together the first and last ones to come eventually escape Thomas More College with a 76-70 non-conference victory.

Wittenberg started the game on a 15-2 run, but that lead quickly evaporated thanks to the hot hand of All-America candidate Holly Roberts, who three three-pointers during a first half in which the Saints shot 48 percent from the field and outscored the Tigers 36-15 the rest of the way to take a 38-30 lead into the locker room. The Tigers got eight early points from senior guard Kate Rolf (Ft. Wayne, Ind./Carroll) to jump out to the big lead, but the Tigers struggled defensively in yielding the halftime lead.

Thomas More picked up right where it left off early in the second half, expanding the lead to 46-32 just a few minutes into the final 20 minutes. But the Tigers showed a great deal of heart in rallying. Just as they did six days earlier when they scored the last nine points in an upset victory over nationally ranked DePauw, Wittenberg stormed back and dominated the game's final minutes.

Trailing 55-42 at the 10:46 mark of the second half, the Tigers went on a 10-0 spurt that got them back into the game, thanks to four points from Rolf and five off the bench from junior guard Amber Bishop (Batavia, Ohio/Batavia). That momentum was suddenly very difficult to stop as the game see-sawed back and forth for a few minutes before the defending North Coast Athletic Conference champions picked up the pace and put the game away in the final five minutes. Senior forward Tiffany Keller (Massillon, Ohio/Tuslaw) started a decisive, game-ending 16-10 run when she broke a 60-60 deadlock with a layup at the 4:29 mark of the second half.

Rolf led the Tigers with 25 points, a personal season high, and seven rebounds and Bishop contributed 17, to tie her career high established earlier this season. Wittenberg, which shot 50 percent from the field in the second half and won the crucial battle of the boards 42-33, also got nine points from junior forward Haley Warden (Loveland, Ohio/Indian Hill) and five points and six rebounds from Keller.

Wittenberg, which improved to 5-3 overall by winning back-to-back games for the first time this season, now gets 10 days off to prepare for its final non-conference game of the 2002-03 season, a date with 16th-ranked Wilmington on Monday, Dec. 30. WULM 1600 AM will carry the game on tape delay following the Tiger men's basketball game that night at Ohio Northern University. Thomas More fell to 6-3 overall heading into a match-up on Dec. 29 against nationally ranked DePauw.