SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – Trailing for a good portion of Wednesday night's game at Wittenberg University, the Kenyon College women's basketball team used the final 49 seconds of regulation to even things up at 49-49. That momentum flowed into overtime and the Ladies completed the comeback with a 61-52 victory over the host Tigers.
With 1:06 left on the fourth-quarter clock, the Ladies were on the unwanted side of a 49-46 score. Senior
Griffin Tullis then stepped in and changed all that. She grabbed a rebound off a missed Wittenberg free throw and got the ball to the other end of the floor, where she buried a three-pointer that tied the game.
When the Tigers went the other way, Tullis came up with a steal, giving the Ladies one final possession with 27 ticks left. After a couple of timeouts, the Kenyon women got a good look at the potential game-winner, but it just wouldn't fall.
In overtime, Tullis started the scoring with a free throw and sophomore
Paige Matijasich followed with a layup and a jumper to give Kenyon a 54-49 cushion with about two minutes remaining. Wittenberg pulled within three points on each of its next two possessions, but Matijasich and junior
Jessica Gerber secured the Kenyon win by converting the team's final six free throw attempts.
Tullis backed up her clutch play in the fourth with 11 points and six rebounds. Matijasich, the reigning North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Player of the Week, poured in a game-high 23 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Over the last four games, she's averaged 20.5 points and 4.3 rebounds for the Ladies.
Gerber provided reinforcements with 16 points and eight rebounds. She was 4-of-8 from three-point land. Gerber, Tullis and Matijasich combined to go 9-of-10 at the free throw line. They also combined for 50 of Kenyon's 61 points.
Back in the first quarter, Wittenberg's Delaney Williams and Alex Kiess tallied six and ten points, respectively, to stake the Tigers to a 21-12 lead. That didn't sit well with the Ladies, who responded by holding Wittenberg to just seven, second-quarter points on a dismal 2-of-14 shooting performance.
The turnaround gave Kenyon a 29-28 halftime lead, but the Tigers regained control in the third quarter and went up by as many as seven points. At the start of the fourth, Kenyon turned the tables again. Matijasich scored, Gerber buried a three-pointer and Tullis finished off a three-point play to give Kenyon a 44-43 advantage.
A couple of possessions later, Kiess, who finished with a team-high 17 points for the Tigers, answered with a three-ball that eventually set the stage for Tullis' late takeover.
The win was Kenyon's third straight and pushed the Ladies' records to 12-2 overall and 5-0 in the NCAC. It also put the Ladies on a collision course with DePauw University, a team that shares the same 5-0 mark in the conference and is 13-1 overall. The two heavyweights will duke it out Saturday in Greencastle, Indiana at 3 p.m.
