Posted January 10, 2004
Posted by: Ryan Maurer

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Box Score

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Once again, the Wittenberg Tigers didn't play a perfect offensive game but they suffocated an opponent defensively to come away with a victory. This time, the victim was Oberlin and the margin in the end was 59-39 in favor of the two-time defending North Coast Athletic Conference regular season champion Tigers.

The win, the Tigers' fifth straight since losing to Thomas More on Dec. 20, improved Wittenberg to 8-5 overall and 4-0 in the NCAC and extended the team's conference regular season win streak to 24 in a row. Oberlin fell to 2-9 overall and 0-5 in the NCAC.

It took almost three minutes for either team to dent the scoreboard, but once Tigers' junior guard Alison Nahrup (Loveland, Ohio/Mt. Notre Dame) drilled a three-pointer at the 17:09 mark, Wittenberg never trailed in the game. Behind seven points each from senior forward Haley Warden (Loveland, Ohio/Indian Hill) and junior guard Emilie Schmid (Canton, Ohio/Massillon Jackson), Wittenberg slowly extended its lead out to 30-17 by halftime. In the second half, the entire Wittenberg bench saw at least three minutes of action and the lead eventually reached 23 points on a jumper with 2:38 to go by freshman guard Megan Miller (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster).

Wittenberg was led by Warden with 15 points and seven rebounds in the game. She was joined in double figures by Schmid with 12 and sophomore guard Carrie Jones (Greenville, Ohio/Greenville) with 10 tallies. The Tigers took 19 more shots in the game than Oberlin thanks to a deceiving 41-38 rebounding advantage - Wittenberg collected 21 offensive boards, led by Warden with four. In addition, the Tigers forced 26 Oberlin turnovers, compared to 15 for the visitors.

Oberlin, which has lost 33 of the 36 meetings with Wittenberg in the series history, got nine points from Tranice Harrell to lead the offense. Harrell also led all rebounders in the game with eight.