By Chris Schmidbauer, Sports Information Director

Toledo, OH -- On a night when the four sophomores played their final regular season game at the SHAC, the #5 Owens Express would weather a choppy game to claim a 71-51 win over the Lakeland Lakers. 

Owens would jump out to a 19-15 lead at the end of the first quarter, which was dominated by stoppages in play. The lack of flow to the game carried over to the second period, with both teams struggling to shoot from the floor. The Express were just 4-14 in the second period while Lakeland was just 5-16 from the field. Owens was able to stem the tide hitting 8-11 free throws to carry a 35-27 lead into the break.

In the third period, Lakeland would trim the Express lead to just four, after making the first two baskets out of halftime. The Express would answer back of 7-0 run of their own to push the lead to 11 points on a three pointer from Brenda Pennington. The lead would hover in double digits until the 5:35 mark in the third when Armani Jackson hit a three for the Lakers to cut the Express lead to seven points. In fact, Lakeland would close the third on an 11-4 run to trail by just three points at 48-45 heading into the game's final quarter of play. 

That was the closest the Lakers would come. Owens would score the first two baskets of the fourth on layups from Essence Cowan and Dai'Shona Polk to push the Express lead back to seven points. Jayla Sanford would hit a three for the Lakers with 7:07 to play in the game to cut the Lakeland deficit to four. 

Then the Express hit the accelerator. Owens would close the game on a 19-3 run over the game's final seven plus minutes to run away with the game. Essence Cowan would score nine of those 19 points as the Express were able to put the game well out of reach before the final buzzer. 

Cowan would finish the contest with 19 points on 7-15 shooting from the field in her final regular season home game at Owens. She also finished with three rebounds, three assists, a season high five steals and three blocks. 

Brenda Pennington finished two points behind Cowan in the stat book. She had 17 points on 5-10 shooting and she was 6-8 from the charity stripe. She also had six rebounds, a team high five assists, and one steal in her final regular season home game. 

Kaylah Ivey closed out the regular season home slate of her career with another double-double. Ivey had 11 points on 4-10 shooting and a game high 12 rebounds on the evening. The stat line represents Ivey's team high eighth double-double of the season and the eighteenth of her Owens career.

Freshman Dai'Shona Polk continued her steady play as well. She collected 14 points on 7-13 shooting to go along with five rebounds. Fellow freshman Da'Vina Shelton finished second on the team in rebounds with eight. 

The Lakers were led in scoring by Armani Jackson, who had 17 points on 6-13 shooting. She had a team high in rebounds with eight as well. The only other Laker in double figures was Delesha Jackson, who finished with 11 points on 4-12 shooting. 

Owens improved on the season to 22-4 overall and 12-1 in the OCCAC. The Express now are a half game ahead of Sinclair, who sat idle on Wednesday night. It was also the team's ninth win in a row, which is still the second longest win streak of the season. The Express had a ten game win streak earlier in the season from November 21st - December 28th. 

Lakeland fell to 15-7 overall and 7-5 in the OCCAC standings. They are currently a half game behind third place Edison State. 

The Express now have one final regular season game left on the schedule. They will hit the road to the state capital on Saturday to take on Columbus State. Owens won the first matchup between the two teams back on January 20th by a final of 94-49. 

Notes

• As mentioned, Wednesday's game was sophomore night. Kaylah Ivey, Brenda Pennington, Olivia Frost, and Essence Cowan were all honored prior to the start of the game. The sophomore class has combined to earn a 53-5 record, an OCCAC conference championship, a national ranking as high as #2 and a regional runner-up finish a year ago. They could add another conference championship to their impressive resume, should the team prevail Saturday at Columbus State.
• Owens remained at #5 in the latest NJCAA Division II Top 20 poll. In fact, the top five in the poll remained the same. It is the third week in a row that this has occurred.