GAMBIER, Ohio – Another solid defensive showing thrust the Kenyon College women's basketball team past The College of Wooster and into the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) tournament semifinal round. Tuesday night at Tomsich Arena, the Ladies held the visiting Fighting Scots to 25.5 percent shooting while rolling to a 63-30 quarterfinal victory.

In addition to allowing just 12 field goals on 47 shot attempts, the Ladies defense forced Wooster into 26 turnovers and didn't allow the Fighting Scots to ring up a double-digit point total in any quarter of play. In fact, during second-quarter action, Wooster was held to just four points on 2-for-12 shooting.

The Ladies offense stumbled a bit out of the gate, going 4-for-17 in the first quarter, but the Purple and White blew the game wide open by outscoring Wooster 16-4 in the second quarter and 22-8 in the third. The Ladies managed 23 points off turnovers and got 23 points from the bench, compared to just five for Wooster.

With a five-point lead early in the second quarter, Kenyon went on a 15-0 run that covered a little more than eight minutes. Lane Davis had four points during the run and both Jessica Gerber and Paige Matijasich scored three.



That opened up a 17-point lead at intermission and it just kept growing for the Ladies, who twice moved ahead by as many as 33 points. Kenyon shot 13-for-29 (44.8 percent) in the second half, including an impressive 6-for-11 showing (54.6 percent) from three-point range.

Matijasich was 4-for-5 from long range and pumped in a game-high 16 points. Ellie Schaub added 10 points and Davis finished with eight. Both Matijasich and Davis had nine rebounds, as well. Gerber dished out a game-high five assists.

The win gave Kenyon a 21-5 overall record, marking the third-best single-season win total in program history. The win also put the Ladies in the NCAC tournament semifinal for the fourth time in the last five years.

Kenyon will head to DePauw University on Friday to play Oberlin College, winner of its quarterfinal game with Denison University. Kenyon is the No. 2 seed in the NCAC tournament and Oberlin (19-7) is the No. 3 seed. That semifinal is slated to tip-off at 7 p.m. The other semifinal, scheduled for 5 p.m., will feature No. 1-seeded DePauw against No. 4-seeded Wittenberg University.