Wittenberg Knocks Off Ohio Wesleyan

DELAWARE, Ohio - The Wittenberg women's basketball team took a significant step toward a third straight outright North Coast Athletic Conference regular season championship on Tuesday night, bringing home a 66-59 victory over preseason favorite Ohio Wesleyan. The win kept the Tigers' NCAC lead at two games over Allegheny and put the Battling Bishops four games back with just five remaining.

Wittenberg won for the 31st time in a row in NCAC regular season action and the 11th straight time in the 2003-04 season to improve to 15-5 overall and 11-0 in the conference. Ohio Wesleyan dropped to 11-8 overall and 7-4 in the NCAC, good for fourth place.

The Tigers claimed a 31-29 lead by halftime, in part thanks to 19 points by senior guard Amber Bishop (Batavia, Ohio/Batavia). She added eight more in the second half, and she got a huge assist from senior forward Haley Warden (Loveland, Ohio/Indian Hill). Warden scored 16 of her career-high-tying 23 points in the final 20 minutes, despite playing the latter stages with four fouls. She also added a career-high 19 rebounds, which was a season-high for the Tigers as a team and the third highest total in school history.

With the duo of Bishop and Warden scoring 50 of the Tigers' 66 points driving the offense, a total team effort held 2003 NCAC Player of the Year Kelly Heil to 15 points on 6-of-19 shooting and a team-high nine rebounds. That's nearly six below her average. Ohio Wesleyan was led offensively by Erica Brizendine with 18 points.

The win sets up a key road contest for the Tigers at Allegheny on Friday at 5:30 p.m. Wittenberg's last NCAC regular season loss came on Feb. 2, 2002, in Meadville, Pa.