Ohio Women’s Basketball Coach Boldon Hits 100
By: Abbey Kay
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Ohio University Women’s Basketball tipped off their post season play against the Akron Lady Zips with a 85-73 win in the first round of the MAC Tournament.
But, this victory wasn’t the only success of the night. Head Coach Bob Boldon reached his 100th win with the Lady Cats.
Boldon is the second women’s head coach at Ohio University to reach the milestone but he was the fastest to get there, doing it in just 154 games and five seasons. In 2015 he also led the Lady Cats to their first MAC Championship in 30 years.
In a post-game interview, Burke and Jessing said they weren’t even aware their coach was on the brink of this feat but they said they were happy to be a part of it.
Bobcats Control the Court
Senior Taylor Agler thought Senior Night last Wednesday would be the last game she’d play on her home court, but a fifth-place seeding in the tournament brought her back to the Convocation Center on Monday night.
The Lady Zips have been tough competition for the Lady Cats this season. In January, the Lady Cats slipped away with a 70-67 overtime win. But on Saturday, just a few days before their match-up in the MAC Tournament, the Lady Zips walked away with a 62-59 victory.
But in basketball, team’s have to go into each game with a fresh mentality, and that’s what the Lady Cats did.
“I think for this game we came in with a different mindset,” junior Kendall Jessing said. “I know it’s tournament time, so you start out with a 0-0 score and a 0-0 record. Every team is even at this point so we kind of looked at what we really needed to do and took it possession by possession and came out with that win.”
OU pulled forward with an early lead at the top of the first quarter by going on a 14-point run, but then allowed the Zips to answer with a run of their own. A burst in Akron’s offense shifted the momentum but OU maintained its first quarter 19-14 lead .
Back and forth scoring in the second quarter resulted in a halftime score of 34-27.
In the second half, Akron’s Megan Sefcik’s five three-pointers presented a strong threat to the Lady Cats defense, but in the end it wasn’t enough to stand against the powerful drives by Amani Burke who finished with 20 points, Gabby Burris with 17 points and Cierra Hooks with 14 points.
Jessing also set a personal scoring record of 12 points in the match-up.
The Lady Cats advance to the quarter finals against Miami University Wednesday night at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
Although the Lady Cats have lost to Miami twice already this year, Jessing says she feels the Lady Redhawks haven’t seen their best game yet.