Box Score GAMBIER, Ohio  – Following the conclusion of the first half, the Kenyon College women's basketball team was looking for one person to help them make one final push past The College of Wooster in Saturday afternoon's North Coast Athletic Conference contest. That person turned out to be Maureen Hirt, whose 13 second-half points turned a four-point halftime lead into a nine-point Kenyon victory at Tomsich Arena, 70-61.

Wooster (6-9, 1-6 NCAC) began breathing down Kenyon's neck by trimming the Ladies' lead to just a single point with 13:00 minutes to go. Maggie Boelter hit her fourth three-pointer of the game to start a run that served as the turning point of the game. After being limited to just six points in the first half, the Ladies started feeding Hirt the ball to reenergize the offense. On cue, Hirt made a dash to the bucket and hit a runner off the glass. That possession created a shift in the tide toward the Ladies' side. Shortly after, Autumn Anderson cleaned up the glass on her own miss to put Kenyon up by six before Molly Rubin caused a turnover and took it the other way before being fouled and sent to the line.

After Rubin nailed both free throws, Shelby Gray chipped in a pair with a jumper that propelled the Kenyon lead to 10, 55-45. Hirt got back into the action by scoring the next three points for the Ladies and helped keep their lead to double digits with her fifth and final field goal. More importantly, Hirt was able to create eight trips to the charity stripe and converted on seven of her attempts. She finished with 13 points in the second half, 19 for a game total.

The Fighting Scots were unable to recover from such a deficit, hitting just one three-point shot in the entire second half and missed five of their last six in the final five minutes of play. Wooster shot just 3-for-19 (.158) from behind the arc while also seeing their team shooting percentage drop from 40.7 to 36.7 percent over the course of the half. Despite going 14-for-17 from the free throw line, their lack of a deep threat sealed Kenyon's victory down the stretch.

Kenyon (9-6, 4-3 NCAC) got its shooting groove back from the field, finishing the game with a 43.9 shooting percentage. All four of the Ladies' three-pointers came off of the hands of Boelter, who went 4-for-6 from deep range and finished with 14 points.

While Hirt and Boelter each topped the Kenyon's point scoring list, Sarah Hobbs served as a spark off of the bench. The junior guard dumped in seven points off the bench at pumped up the crowd by slipping behind the Wooster defense multiple times and finishing with layups. She also played strong defensively, pulling down four rebounds and adding a pair of steals, plus four assists.

Miranda Diesz also played strongly in a reserve role with a nine-point scoring effort, her best since scoring 12 against Ohio Wesleyan University on Jan. 4.

The Ladies won both the rebound battle, 41-36, and earned more trips to the free throw line than Wooster, the first time they have achieved both against an opponent since defeating Allegheny College on Dec. 10.

With the win, Kenyon snaps a three-game losing streak and improves to 4-3 in conference play. They will play Wittenberg University on the road on Jan. 22 with a 7:30 p.m. in their next action. It will be the first of two road games before they come back to play inside Tomsich Arena on Jan. 29.