No. 14-ranked Ohio Northern rallied for a 62-53 victory over Denison in the First Round of the NCAA III Women's Basketball Tournament on Friday at DeVos Fieldhouse.
The Polar Bears (23-4 overall) advance to the Second Round on Saturday at 7 pm against the winner of Friday night's second contest between host and No. 5-ranked Hope (Mich.) or No. 25-ranked Carnegie Mellon (Pa.).
The Big Red, who were nationally ranked throughout most of the season and received the 26th-most points in the latest D3hoops.com poll, see their season end with a 23-5 record.
The Ohio Northern women's lacrosse team posted the program's first-ever victory on Thursday evening with a 6-4 decision at Oglethorpe (Ga.) at Oglethorpe Field.
The Polar Bears improve to 1-1, while the Stormy Petrels fall to 2-5.
Six different players scored for Ohio Northern, who built a 6-2 lead and hung on during an OU rally in the final five minutes.
Sophomore Aliya Hutman-Zahler tied the game at 1-1 with a goal 5:17 into the match and junior Kayla Reuss put ONU up 2-1 with a goal 10:09 into the game.
Freshman Alexandra Miller gave ONU a 3-2 lead at the half with a goal 2:35 prior to intermission.
By Monty Siekerman
Kylee Barnett stands ready to play lacrosse Saturday afternoon at Dial-Roberson Stadium, but she did not score, nor did any member of either team because the officials did not show up.
The game against Olivet was postponed to another day. This was to be the inaugural game for women's intercollegiate lacrosse at ONU. The next home game is scheduled for 1 p.m., March 6, against Keuka, N.Y.
No. 10-ranked Ohio Northern will travel to Holland, Mich., and will face No. 23-ranked Denison in the First Round of the NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Tournament on Friday.
The Polar Bears (22-4 overall) are making their third NCAA Tournament appearance in the past four seasons and won the Ohio Athletic Conference regular season title with a 17-1 record.
The Big Red are 23-4 on the season and won the North Coast Athletic Conference regular season title with a 15-1 mark.
Both Ohio Northern and Denison received at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament.
Freshman Steven Slagle scored two goals and dished out six assists to lead the Ohio Northern men's lacrosse team to a dominating 19-4 victory over Franciscan in ONU's inaugural varsity contest on Saturday afternoon at Dial-Roberson Stadium.
The Polar Bears (1-0) also got four goals and two assists from freshman Max Weese.
The Barons (0-1) got two goals from Dan McCartney in their season opener.
Freshman Peter Hardt scored the first two goals in Ohio Northern history, finding the back of the net at the 12:10 and 10:57 marks of the first period. Fittingly, the first goal was assisted by Weese and the second goal by Slagle.
