After three away games, the Hillsdale College women’s basketball team came home and defeated Ohio Dominican University 81-66.
In January, Hillsdale suffered a tough loss to the Ohio Dominican Panthers. On Saturday, however, the Chargers played a solid game from start to finish.
“The defense took out two of their players who hurt us the first time,” assistant coach Jon Mock said.
No player on Ohio Dominican scored double digits.
Junior Chelsea Farrell said teams usually try to shut down junior Megan Fogt, who earned her fifth GLIAC “South Player of the Week” award this week.
“We did a good job of picking up the slack,” Farrell said.
Farrell noted that sophomore Ashlynn Landherr stepped up with 21 points.
Even with Ohio Dominican trying to shut her out, Fogt was able to get 24 points and 23 rebounds.
“The guards do a great job,” Farrell said. “Trying to get the ball in to Megan puts pressure on the guards to help her and still get numbers for themselves.”
Hillsdale had only nine turnovers and 11 fouls as a team, a season low.
This game was the fifth game in nine days, including their four overtime game a week earlier.
“We knew going in it was going to be rough and that by the end of it we were going to be exhausted,” junior Kadie Lowery said in an email, “but instead of letting that get inside of our heads I think we let it fuel us.”
Hillsdale went 4-1 over the last two weeks, which only a few other teams in the league were able to match, and none were able to beat.
“It says something about their character and performance,” Mock said.
Hillsdale’s only loss was on Thursday, Feb. 6, against Tiffin University, 76-73.
“We started off extremely well,” Mock said. “But at the end of the first and second half, we kind of looked like we lost our edge.”
Hillsdale had 26 fouls and 14 turnovers.
“We sent them to the free throw line quite a bit and gave them a lot of free points,” Lowery said.
Hillsdale did not fall behind Tiffin until the last two minutes of the game, thanks to some big scorers. Fogt had 21 points, sophomore Madison Berry had 17, and Lowery had 15.
“I was worried about this game from a physical standpoint,” Mock said, because it was Hillsdale’s fourth game in seven days. “I felt like it was going to be the one where we could show some fatigue, but from the way we played, I don’t think that was the case.”
To recover from an exhausting week, the coaches did not hold Monday practice. Hillsdale will play Lake Erie College on Thursday, Feb. 13, and Ashland University on Saturday.
Farrell said Hillsdale, currently in third place in the South Division, has a chance to be highly ranked this year.
“It’s very important that we just focus on the one game ahead of us,” Mock said.