Leading by as many as 10 points, the Kenyon College women’s basketball team couldn’t hang on Wednesday night at the College of Wooster. The host Fighting Scots outscored Kenyon, 40-28, in the second half to record a 71-68 North Coast Athletic Conference win.
Kenyon (5-13, 3-6 NCAC) maintained a lead all the way until there was just 1:45 showing on the third-quarter clock. At that point, Wooster’s Harley Holloway converted a driving layup to give the Fighting Scots a 50-49 advantage. Each team tacked on two more points and Wooster moved into the final quarter with a 52-51 edge.
Over the last 10 minutes of play, the NCAC foes went back and forth with neither team gaining any more than a three-point advantage. At 4:48, Wooster’s Maia Doescher tied the game at 65-65 with a layup. The teams again traded buckets, but at the 2:24 mark, Masani Francis buried a game-deciding three-pointer for Wooster.
Even with more than two minutes left to play, both teams managed just one free throw down the rest of the way, giving Wooster (4-12, 3-4 NCAC) the three-point win.
Katie Orefice, the NCAC's leading scorer, didn’t have her best game for Kenyon, but teammates Grace Connery and Claudia Cooke stepped up. In the first quarter, Connery sank a pair of three-pointers and tallied 11 of the Ladies’ first 13 points. That helped Kenyon build its first 10-point lead of the game. A trio of three-pointers from Wooster, however, brought an end to the first quarter with Kenyon clinging to a slim 16-14 advantage.
In the second quarter, Cooke took control. After scoring four points in the first frame, Cooke logged eight points in the second. When Wooster moved within one point, at 18-17, Cooke scored all eight of her second-quarter points in a row for the Ladies, who moved ahead 26-19. Greta Propp tacked on six points late in the quarter and sent the Ladies into halftime with a 40-31 lead.
Although that lead seemed comfortable at the time, Holloway wouldn’t let the Ladies relax. She finished with a game-high 22 points and her nine-point output in the third quarter changed the momentum of the contest for good. Francis, who connected on that one important three-pointer, finished the game with 13 points.
Connery led Kenyon with 21 and Cooke added 19. Orefice scored 11 to go along with seven rebounds and four assists. Bridget Molnar posted the team lead with 11 rebounds, while Cooke and Propp, who scored 10, both had nine rebounds, one short of ringing up a pair of double-doubles.
