GREENCASTLE, Ind. (February 24, 2012) The Kenyon College women's basketball team plays rival Denison University tonight at 6 p.m. in the semifinal round of the North Coast Athletic Conference basketball tournament at DePauw University. The No. 3-seeded Ladies will be looking to end a drawn-out skid against the Big Red and advance to Saturday's conference championship game.

For a few years now, Denison, the tournament's No. 2 seed, has been a thorn in the side of the Ladies, who have dropped ten straight games to the Big Red, dating back to the 2007-08 season. Two of those ten losses occurred in the 2008 and 2011 NCAC semifinal games.

Kenyon (19-7) will have to forget about the past and approach tonight's contest with a clean slate. The Ladies can attack the Big Red in a variety of ways, including a front-court strike from the tandem of senior Morgan Korinek and junior Kayla Ernst. Korinek pours 12.8 points per game and leads the Ladies with 7.7 rebounds per game. She is also Kenyon's career leader in steals. Ernst fires in 14.3 points per game and snares an average of 3.8 rebounds.

The perfect complement to that duo's production is the play of sophomore shooting guard Maureen Hirt , who leads the Ladies, as well as the entire NCAC, with a scoring average of 18.5 points per game. Hirt is deadly from three-point range (44.4 percent), but she can also drive, draw a foul, and sink her free throws (88.1 percent).

As a team, Kenyon leads the NCAC in field goal percentage (44.1 percent) and free throw percentage (74.1 percent). It also ranks second in scoring offense (67.3 ppg) and third in scoring defense (58.2 ppg).

Denison (19-7), winners of seven straight games, will counter Kenyon's strike with the play of junior point guard Serafina Nuzzo, who is averaging 12.4 points per game and 3.0 assists per game. Additionally, sophomore post Jane Windler has been on a tear lately and has boosted her averages to 10.8 points and a team-best 6.6 rebounds per contest.

The Big Red currently rank fifth in the NCAC in scoring offense (62.7 ppg) and rank second in scoring defense (55.0 ppg). They also lead the conference in steals (11.7 spg).

The winner of the semifinal will move on to Saturday's championship game, which will be held at 7 p.m. at DePauw. There they will meet the winner of Friday's other semifinal game, which pits host and No. 1-seed DePauw against No. 5-seed Wittenberg University. That game will tip-off at roughly 8 p.m.

Ticket prices for Friday's and Saturday's games will be $10 for adults and $5 for children, students without a valid ID, and anyone with an NCAC guest pass. Any NCAC student with a valid school ID will be admitted free of charge.