Among all the wins in the current four-game winning streak rung up by the Hillsdale College women's basketball team, none have been more impactful upon the GLIAC standings than Thursday night's victory.
The Chargers surged at both ends of the court in the second half on their way to a 67-60 win over Northwood University at Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. The win breaks a tie Hillsdale had with Northwood in the GLIAC North Division standings, and improves the Chargers to 14-6 overall and 10-6 in the conference. Northwood is now 9-7 in the GLIAC, but thanks to Hillsdale's season sweep of the Timberwolves, the Chargers will win any tiebreakers that exist with NU at the end of the regular season.
Hillsdale got strong post play from freshman Allie Dittmer and senior Megan Fogt throughout the game, with each player taking turns at swinging the game in the Chargers' favor.
Dittmer was particularly effective early in the second half, and she went on to score 14 points and collect 7 rebounds on 6-for-7 shooting from the field. Her tough inside play helped the Chargers to a 46-32 edge in rebounding in the game.
Fogt helped finish off the win by dominating the final five minutes of the contest. She went 7-for-8 from the free throw line, and had 11 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.
Fogt's 4 blocks give her 138 for her career, tying the school's career record, one she now shares with former All-American Katie Cezat. Just one more blocked shot, and Fogt will own that record all to herself.
Northwood played an intelligent first half, and led the Chargers 30-27 at intermission. A quick 3-pointer by the Timberwolves expanded their lead to 33-27 in the opening moments of the second half. That's when Morgan Blair went to work.
Hillsdale's talented sophomore guard went on a personal 9-0 run to swing the game completely in Hillsdale's favor. She made layups on three consecutive possessions, made one free throw than tossed in another layup to suddenly push Hillsdale into a lead it would never lose the rest of the way.
The resilient Timberwolves battled back one more time, tying the game 50-50 with 8:02 to go. But Hillsdale served up another 9-0 run, this time with four different players contributing points to the run. It got started with a Kadie Lowery 3-pointer, followed by more made free throws by Blair and junior Madison Berry, and a nice layup by Dittmer off a feed from Blair to make the score 59-50 with 6:02 to play.
Blair also collected a career-high 9 rebounds to go along with her 14 points. Junior Kayla Geffert shared scoring honors for the Chargers with 14 points, going 8-for-9 from the free throw line. Lowery tacked on 5 points and 5 rebounds for Hillsdale.