Dane Borchers

The Wittenberg men's basketball team captured the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament championship with a 71-69 victory over the College of Wooster on Saturday to earn a berth into the 2006 NCAA Division III Tournament. Wittenberg, which will make an NCAA Division III record 24th appearance in the national competition, then was selected as a host site for one of 11 four-team opening round brackets.

Wittenberg is slated to host Lake Erie College in a first round game at 8 p.m. Friday. That will follow a game between Baldwin-Wallace College and Carnegie Mellon University, which is scheduled for a 6 p.m. tip-off.

The winners of those two games will play in the second round at 7 p.m. Saturday, also at Wittenberg. The winner of Saturday's game will find out on Sunday, March 5, where the four-team sectional tournament will take place on March 10-11. The national semifinals and finals are scheduled for March 17-18 in Salem, Va.

The Tigers moved up to third in the nation in the national weekly poll administered by d3hoops.com after winning three NCAC Tournament games last week. Wittenberg brings a 25-3 overall record into the national competition, including a mark of 13-3 during the NCAC regular season. That was good for second place behind Wooster, the host of the NCAC Tournament semifinals and finals. For the second straight year, Wittenberg cut down the nets on arch-rival Wooster's home court, this time avenging a pair of narrow losses to the Scots during the 2005-06 regular season.

As usual, the Tigers got solid games from several supporting cast members, but the stars of the show were clearly the senior trio of Dane Borchers (Russia, Ohio/Russia), Daniel Russ (Louisville, Ky./Trinity) and Kenny Brady (Reading, Ohio/Reading). Borchers was named Tournament MVP for his 22-point, 14-rebound performance, which came on the heels of a double-double performance in the tourney semifinals against Ohio Wesleyan on Friday night. Borchers recorded his seventh double-double of the season against the Scots.

Russ, the 2005 NCAC Player of the Year and Tournament MVP, nearly matched his teammate in the post with 20 points and 10 rebounds for the third double-double of his final campaign in the Red & White. His penchant for hitting the big shots at the biggest moments continued Saturday as his two free throws with seven seconds left in the game gave the Tigers the cushion they desperately needed to hold on for the win.

Russ now stands 10th in school history with 1,387 career points.

Brady was equally clutch. He finished with 13 points, but the last five came in the final 1:36 with the Scots putting on a furious charge from what had been a nine-point Wittenberg lead. Brady hit three straight free throws to keep the Scots at bay before Russ' pair. Wooster drilled three three-pointers in the final 27 seconds to nearly send the game into overtime.

The rally was fueled by three missed free throws in four attempts by the Tigers after senior wing Phil Steffes (Centerville, Ohio/Centerville) had put Wittenberg ahead by nine points with 1:16 left on a pair of shots from the charity stripe. That capped a crucial 6-1 run by the Tigers that featured two key plays by Steffes - a mid-court steal and a hard-fought rebound.

Steffes finished with four points, three rebounds and two steals, and freshman guard Gregg Hill (Redford, Mich./Union) added seven points and two assists in 24 productive minutes off the bench. The only other Tiger player to score in the game was junior guard Pat Denbow (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier), who finished with five points and two assists in 32 outstanding minutes. Despite being the main backcourt ballhandler against the Scots' pressure defense, Denbow was charged with just two turnovers in 32 minutes.

Wittenberg, the best defensive team in all of NCAA Division III with a scoring average of just over 54 points allowed, finally held the Scots, who rank fourth nationally with more than 100 points per game, relatively in check. The 69 points was the second lowest of the season for the Scots, thanks in large part to a 7-of-18 performance from three-point range. Wooster had hit 23 treys combined in the first two meetings between the two teams, but Wittenberg took much of the Scots' perimeter game away and found the tempo much more to its liking.

The Tigers are sure to be tested again this weekend after winning the 300th game of Head Coach Bill Brown's Wittenberg career on Saturday against Wooster. Brown has a record of 300-69 in 13 seasons as the head coach of his alma mater's men's basketball program, and his overall record - including five years at Kenyon and one at Wooster - stands at 360-168. He is nearing the Wittenberg record for coaching wins, which is currently held by Larry Hunter, who guided the Tigers to a 305-76 record between 1976 and 1989.

Brown's teams have won six NCAC regular season titles and four NCAC Tournament championships. The Tigers have reached the NCAA Division III Tournament nine times in his 13 seasons, including five of the last six.

Details about the Tigers’ season can be found on the team's schedule/results page and season statistics page.

Next: 3/3 vs. Lake Erie
NCAA Division III Tournament

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Becca Searcy

The Wittenberg men's and women's swimming and diving teams wrapped up the 2005-06 season at the Kenyon Invitational last weekend after turning in the best overall team performance in school history at the 2006 North Coast Athletic Conference championships Feb. 9-11 in Canton, Ohio.

The season has ended for all of the Tiger swimmers except one - senior Becca Searcy (Shelbyville, Ky./Shelby County). For the fourth straight year, Searcy has earned a spot in the NCAA Division III Championships, which are scheduled for this year for March 9-11 in Minneapolis, Minn. Searcy, who has five honorable mention All-America awards in her career, became just the fourth female Wittenberg swimmer to reach the national meet all four years of her career when she placed second in the 1,650-yard freestyle at the NCAC Championships in a time of 17:20.75. The time was good for an automatic berth in the national meet, and it remains sixth in the pre-meet seeding.

Searcy will likely swim in two other events - the 500-yard freestyle and the 400-yard Individual Medley - at the NCAA meet.

On the down side, senior Betany Yeakley (Wilmington, Ohio/Wilmington) recorded two NCAA provisional qualifying times, but for a third straight year she did not merit selection to the national meet.

For the second straight year, no Tiger men's swimmers or divers qualified for the national meet, even though the team put together a strong fifth-place finish in the NCAC meet. Most of the Tigers' top competitors in 2005-06 were underclassmen, buoying hopes for a return to the national meet as soon as next season.

Details about the Tigers’ season can be found on the team's schedule/results page.

Next: 3/9-11 NCAA Women's Championships
@ University of Minnesota

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Kristy Parker

The Wittenberg men's and women's track and field teams are primed and ready for the biggest weekend of the 2006 indoor season after taking partial squads to last weekend's Fred Wilt Memorial Invitational at Anderson University.

In their final tune-up for the North Coast Athletic Conference championship meet March 3-4 at Denison, the Tiger men placed seventh and the Tiger women took ninth at Anderson. There were several outstanding individual finishes to highlight the weekend.

For the men, the 4 x 200-meter relay foursome of senior Gregg Carter (Wellsville, Ohio/Wellsville), freshman Manoach Lamarre (Miami, Fla./Bellen Jesuit), senior David Bazzel (Tipp City, Ohio/Tippecanoe) and sophomore Derrick Braziel (Brook Park, Ohio/West Springfield (Va.)) finished first in a school-record time of 1:31.51. Carter then added a school record in the 55 meters as he crossed the finish line in 6.57 in the preliminaries, the best time in the NCAC this year. He finished second in the finals with a time of 6.60.

Carter is set up for a huge conference championship meet. In addition to his top seeding in the 55 meters, Carter has the best time in the NCAC in the 200 meters and the top mark in the long jump. In addition, Carter is part of that 4 x 200-meter relay team, which has the fastest time in the NCAC.

Among several other personal and season-best times at Anderson, freshman Erik Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/Country Day) stood out with a third-place mark of 43-5 in the triple jump, and senior Thomas Dillingham (Cincinnati, Ohio/Princeton) placed fourth in the weight throw with a mark of 47-5. That is just short of his NCAC-best mark of 48-4.5.

On the women's side, there were also some encouraging developments, starting with sophomore Nicole Bailey (Cincinnati, Ohio/Summit Country Day), who placed first in the triple jump with a mark of 35-2, third in the 55 meters with a season-best time of 7.42 and third in the long jump with a mark of 16-7.75. Bailey, who holds the Anderson Fieldhouse record in the 55 meters after blistering the track in a Wittenberg school record time of 7.31 a year ago, will be favored to defend her NCAC title in the event, since she has the fastest time in the conference this year.

Freshman Kristy Parker (Hamilton, Ohio/Ross) made a statement with a time of 27.39 in the 200 meters. The personal-best time was good for fifth place in the meet at Anderson, but it was the best time in the NCAC.

In addition, the 4 x 200-meter relay quartet of freshman Tara Osborne (Oxford, Ohio/Talawanda), Parker, freshman Katie Shoemaker (Arcanum, Ohio/Franklin-Monroe) and senior Anna Finkelstein (Whitehall, Mich./Reeths-Puffer) placed third in a time of 1:49.11, which was almost two seconds better than their best time this season. It was also the top time in the NCAC heading into this weekend's meet.

Parker was named NCAC Sprints/Hurdles Athlete of the Week for her performance at Anderson.

Dillingham was named NCAC Field Events Athlete of the Week and Carter earned NCAC Sprints/Hurdles Athlete of the Week for the second time this season.

Details about the Tigers can be found on the team's schedule/results page.

Next: 3/3-4 NCAC Indoor Championships
@ Denison

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Katie Gregorevich

The Wittenberg women's basketball team saw its 2005-06 season come to a disappointing conclusion last week. After winning the North Coast Athletic Conference regular season championship with a sparkling 14-2 record, the Tigers were upended in the NCAC Tournament semifinals last Friday on their home court.

The Tigers rounded out their season with a 19-8 overall record with a 52-37 loss to Kenyon. Wittenberg, with just one senior in the playing rotation for the majority of the 2005-06 season, struggled mightily at the offensive end against the Ladies, who won last year's NCAC regular season title and were the preseason conference favorite this year.

After a slow start for both teams, there was just one lead change at the 8:16 mark of the first half, which gave the Ladies a 17-16 advantage. In the second half, Wittenberg crawled back to a 33-33 tie on a three-pointer by junior wing Megan Miller (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster) at the 9:47 mark. But Kenyon scored the next four points and fended off every Wittenberg advance from that point. Over the game's excrutiating final eight minutes, the Tigers did not score a point as the Ladies extended the lead from 40-37 to the final of 52-37.

Wittenberg shot just 28 percent from the field, including 3-of-16 from three-point range. The Tigers were paced offensively by sophomore post Katie Gregorevich (Northfield, Ohio/Walsh Jesuit) and junior wing Rachel Clark-Haggy (South Charleston, Ohio/Southeastern) with six points apiece, while Gregorevich was the high rebounder for either side with eight.

The end of the season came just days after the team's most complete performance in an 81-36 victory over visiting Hiram on Tuesday in the first round of the NCAC Tournament. It was the 17th straight year that Wittenberg had advanced to the NCAC Tournament semifinals.

The Tigers put 16 players into the game and 15 of them scored, led by Gregorevich, who was named to the NCAC All-Tournament team, with 17 points and seven rebounds in a very productive 14 minutes. Senior guard Brittany Landreth (Mantua, Ohio/Valparaiso (Ind.)) pulled down a career-high six rebounds in the game and Miller added a career-best five assists as part of a tremendously balanced stats sheet.

Details about the Tigers’ season can be found on the team's schedule/results page and season statistics page.

Next: Season Complete