Oilers Keep Season Alive with Senior Day Victory Over Tiffin
Findlay, Ohio – The University of Findlay women's basketball team took on the Tiffin University Dragons on Saturday, Feb. 26 in Croy Gymnasium, needing a win to keep the season alive. It took the full 40 minutes, but the Oilers picked up the 63-58 victory over the Dragons, earning a bid into the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) tournament. With the win, Findlay improves to 14-14 on the season and have a 12-10 record in conference play while the Dragons season ends its season at 13-15 overall with a 10-12 mark in the league.
The Oilers got ahead early and just over three minutes into the game, senior forward Bridget Landin hit a jumper to collect the 1,000th point of her career, becoming the 24th player in program history to reach that milestone. That basket was part of a run that saw Findlay build its biggest lead of the game at 30-19. The Dragons, however, went on a run of their own to close the half, outscoring Findlay 9-0 over the final three minutes to pull within two points at the break.
A quick three put Tiffin ahead at 31-30 after halftime, but Findlay immediately took back the lead on a triple by Lauren Hapgood.
Findlay's lead reached nine points at 52-43 with five minutes remaining in the game, but the Dragons slowly crept back into the contest and pulled to within two at 60-58 with just 30 seconds remaining.
Free throws down the stretch iced the game as the Oilers went on to earn the victory and potentially keep the season alive.
Findlay shot 43% in the game, making 21-of-49 from the floor including 3-of-9 from deep. Tiffin hit just 36%, making 21-of-58 and 10-of-29 from three. The Dragons outrebounded Findlay 36-to-33 in the game but committed more turnovers at 15-to-12.
Free throws played a major role in the contest as the Oilers earned 24 trips to the charity stripe, making 18 of those attempts. Tiffin, meanwhile, hit just 6-of-11 attempts.
The Oilers also doubled up the Dragons in points-off-turnovers, scoring 20 points off of Tiffin mistakes while Tiffin scored just ten points off Findlay miscues.
Senior Sydney Kin scored 16 points to lead the Oilers, most of which came from the free-throw line as she hit 8-of-10 from the stripe. She also grabbed six rebounds. Landin scored 15 points and led Findlay with eight rebounds and three steals to round out a solid performance on Senior Day.
Coming off the bench, senior Amber Schweiger scored eight points and led the team with four assist. Sophomore Kate Ellis scored five points and had five rebounds.
For Tiffin, Savanah Richards led the way with 10 points while Dana Rose scored 15. Jada Tate scored six points and had a game-high ten rebounds.
Findlay will await the results of Saturday's remaining G-MAC contests to see where they will travel for the first round of the G-MAC tournament.
