FINDLAY, Ohio - The Dragons pulled within five in the waning moments of the game, but it was not enough as Tiffin (13-9, 7-8) fell to Findlay (15-6, 10-4) 59-53 Thursday night (Feb. 10).
Tiffin was led by Mandy Jaeb, who had 17 points on 6-12 shooting. Holly Focke added 11 points while Jessica Harris had seven points and a team-high six boards.
In a statistical anomaly, every player that appeared in the game for TU had exactly one rebound in the first half except Jennifer Johnston. Thanks to an 18-8 edge on the boards in the first half, Findlay was able to take a 29-17 advantage into intermission.
Laura Bardall had a career game for Findlay with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Kayla Brown had a game-high 18 points and four boards while Clare Aubrey added 13 and four.
Findlay jumped out to a 9-0 lead, capped by a Aubry trey, but TU answered with seven points of its own. Karli Mast got Tiffin in the scoring column with a three before a Jaeb jumper and layup brought Tiffin within 9-7 with 13:01 left in the first half. Bardall and Kaitlyn Nelson answered with field goals for the Oilers and Findlay was up by six. Johnston and Mast responded with buckets for Tiffin, but a pair from the line by Tai Dotson and a three by Brown gave Findlay an 18-11 lead. The Dragons never trailed by less than five the rest of the way. An Aubry jumper and three extended Findlay's lead to 12, 29-17, at half.
The Oilers led by as much as 18 in the second, but Tiffin used an 8-0 run with less than 10 minutes remaining to cut it to single digits for the first time since the first stanza. Harris made two from the line and hit a jumper off of a UF turnover to bring Tiffin within 46-32. A Melissa Gilliland jumper and Jillian Adams layup brought TU within seven with 6:51 left. However, Findlay made a big shot when it needed to as Aubry nailed a three to push the home team's lead back to double digits. Jaeb hit two threes late and Gilliland added a jumper just inside the arc, but Findlay made nine of its last 10 from the line to seal the six-point win.
Tiffin returns to action Saturday when it travels north for its final regular season contest against a team from Michigan. Tip-off is scheduled for 23 minutes after the men's game, which begins at 1 p.m.
