The Wilmington College women's basketball team has its sights set on a bye into the quarterfinals of the Ohio Athletic Conference tournament with four regular season games remaining. The Lady Quakers trail Wednesday's opponent Otterbein by one game for third place, and lead Capital by one game for fourth place.
Essentially, however, Wilmington leads Capital by two games due to the sweep of the season series. WC has an outside chance of earning a double bye as they trail Mount Union by two games with four remaining.
That was the good news.
The Lady Quakers are 1-3 this season against the final four remaining teams. Wilmington could fall to the opening round games with similar performances. The lone win, a 65-56 home victory over John Carroll on January 5.
"Our goal is to get to the NCAA tournament, and the fewer the obstacles, the better," said head coach Jerry Scheve.
In the first meeting, Otterbein used a zone to limited leading scorer Brianna Peters (Alexandria, KY/Campbell County) to just four points and held the Lady Quakers to 22 percent shooting from the field. Peters only attempted four shots, and Wilmington was 12-of-54 from the field. In WC's losses this season, it is only shooting 32 percent from the field. The Lady Quakers are shooting 37 percent in their victories.
"We really had trouble with both their press and their zone defense," said Scheve. "We didn't attack it well and didn't shoot it well when we did attack. We want to get the ball inside because we feel that it is the best way to get good shots."
The 21 three-point attempts were the second-most attempts WC has taken all season long.
Otterbein comes into the game on a two-game losing streak after posting 10 consecutive wins. The Cardinals are 10-0 in OAC action against teams not named Ohio Northern or Mount Union. They are 0-4 against ONU and Mount Union. Otterbein is in third place, a game ahead of the Lady Quakers.
OC is second in the league in scoring defense and the top three-point shooting team in the OAC.
Senior Hannah Day is leading the team with 16.4 points and 6.9 rebounds. Day's 52 made three's are second in the OAC. Sophomore Tabatha Piper is second with 10.6 points and 6.7 boards, while senior Rachel Snedgar is third with 8.1 points and 6.1 rebounds.