By Nicholas Huenefeld/Owens Sports Information
Dayton, Ohio---Ariel Bethea (Huron/Ann Arbor, Mich.) scored a team-high 17 points, and Haili Mossing (Evergreen/Metamora, Ohio) added 12 points and nine rebounds off the bench as the No. 3 Owens Community College women's basketball team defeated No. 20 Sinclair Community College 78-56 on the road yesterday.
With the win, Owens improved to 10-0 overall and 2-0 in Ohio Community College Athletic Conference (OCCAC) play. They are now just one win away from tying the 2010-11 team's record for the best start to a season in program history, and they can do that when they host Kellogg Community College at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Sinclair fell to 10-2 overall and 1-1 in OCCAC play with the loss. Their 22-point loss is the closest win Owens has had through 10 games this year, topping the 23-point win over No. 12 Kalamazoo Valley on Nov. 18. Both of those games came on the road.
Yesterday, the game was either tied or Owens held the lead the whole way except for a seven second stretch midway through the first quarter. Jeryn Reese (Mansfield/Mansfield, Ohio) scored the game's first four points before Sinclair answered with four straight.
Brenda Pennington (Bishop Noll/Hammond, Ind.) then drove the left side of the lane for a layup before Sinclair's Reanna Dudley made a 3-pointer to give her team its only lead of the game. Seven seconds later, Bethea hit a pull up jumper. She added a pair of free throws on the next possession, and then Reese hit a jumper inside the 3-point line for a 12-7 lead.
Sinclair rallied to produce seven of the game's next nine points to knot things at 14 apiece, but that's when Owens took control. Kaylah Ivey (Westerville South/Westerville, Ohio) hit a layup and a free throw over a four possession stretch, and Courizma Williams (Hughes/Cincinnati, Ohio) made a corner 3-pointer with 16 seconds left to give Owens a 20-14 lead through one.
After the teams traded points to open the quarter and with Sinclair down six, Sybil Roseboro (Elyria/Elyria, Ohio) used her right hand to drive from the corner into the paint for a jumper off the glass, which started an 8-0 run that featured points from four different players.
That run gave Owens a 14-point lead, which they hovered around until a layup from Bethea with 3:50 left pushed the score to 36-20. The lead would jump back up to 16 two more times before a 5-0 run gave Owens a 45-24 lead with 38 seconds left. Mossing drove the left side of the lane for a layup, and Williams added another corner 3-pointer to complete the run as Owens led by 18 at halftime.
Sinclair opened the second half by trimming its 18-point deficit in half over the first four minutes. A jumper from Pennington 1:33 into the quarter provided the only points for Owens during that stretch.
Williams ended the run with a driving layup off the glass. She then dished to Mossing for a corner 3-pointer, and Bethea added two free throws to give Owens a 54-38 lead with 4:36 left. Williams, Pennington and Mossing each scored over the next three minutes, and then another 3-pointer from Mossing gave Owens a 63-44 lead through three.
In the fourth quarter, Owens opened up on an 8-1 run to put away any thoughts of a comeback for Sinclair. Bethea and Williams hit back-to-back layups to open the run, which forced a Sinclair timeout. Bethea then added two free throws out of the timeout before Reese hit a jumper to give Owens a 71-45 lead with 7:55 left.
Down the stretch, the Owens offense struggled as they only scored seven points in the final six minutes. Those points came via two free throws from Williams, put-back layups from Reese and Roseboro and a free throw from Bethea.
Bethea led the team in scoring in large part due to a 7-for-8 finish from the foul line. She added six steals, four blocks, two assists and two rebounds. Reese finished 8-for-14 from the field and added 16 points, eight rebounds and three steals. Williams (14) and Mossing (12) also hit double figure scoring, and Pennington had a team-high seven steals to go along with six points. Ivey had a team-high 14 rebounds (nine offensive) along with seven points.
Dudley led Sinclair with 18 points, and Tajah Parker added 11. Aaryn Evans had a team-high 12 rebounds. They saw their eight game winning streak come to an end and were out-rebounded 51-40 by Owens.
Notes
Reese is now up to 619 career points. She is 22 points away from passing Briana Williams (Stebbins/Dayton, Ohio) for 28th on the career scoring list.
Bethea has now scored in double figures in each of the past six games. She is averaging 15.8 points and four steals per game over that stretch.
Williams played a season-high 25 minutes, which resulted in a season-high 14 points. She is now just eight points away from 400 in her career.