For the second year in a row, the Hillsdale College women's basketball team will be playing postseason basketball.
The Chargers locked up a spot in the G-MAC Tournament with a game to spare in the regular season thanks to Thursday's 73-61 victory over visiting Findlay. The win avenges a 61-57 loss to the Oilers on the road just five days prior, and ensures that Hillsdale will enter the tournament next week with no worse than the seventh seed.
Hillsdale blew a close game open with a dominant finish to the first half, outscoring Findlay 12-3 in the final three minutes and thirty seconds of the second quarter to take a nine-point halftime edge the Chargers would never relinquish. The Chargers hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the final 40 seconds of the half, including a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Sydney Pnacek from the volleyball line as time expired.
With an edge in the contest, Hillsdale quickly pushed the lead to double-digits, going up by as many as 16 points on back-to-back three pointers from Caitlin Splain and Annalise Pietrzyk midway through the third quarter. Findlay attempted to make a charge to get back in the game in the fourth, but Hillsdale answered every attempt by the Oilers to make a run and never let the lead slip back to single digits.
Key to the win was a great shot-making night by the Chargers in the friendly confines of Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena, who hit 50% from the floor and 38.1% from 3-point range after shooting just 35% from the floor and 32.1% from deep on the road against the Oilers last Saturday. That improved offensive performance made a big difference for the Chargers, who gave up the same number of points to the Oilers defensively as they did on the road on Saturday, but turned a four-point defeat into a 12-point victory. Hillsdale also assisted on 16 of their 28 made baskets and committed just 10 turnovers in the contest.
Senior Sydney Mills had a big night for the Chargers in the win, scoring a team-leading 19 points and just missing a double-double with nine rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Junior Lauren McDonald chipped in 13 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals, and junior Kendall McCormick added 13 points, three rebounds and two assists as well. Pietrzyk had a strong game off the bench for the Chargers, contributing 11 points, five rebounds, four assists, and a buzzer-beating 3-pointer of her own to end the third quarter.
Hillsdale is now 16-11 overall, 12-7 in the G-MAC, and in a three-way tie for fifth place in the conference standings entering the final regular-season game on Saturday at 1 p.m. at home against Ursuline. The Arrows will be playing for their season, as anything but a victory will see Ursuline eliminated from G-MAC Tournament contention, but the Chargers also have significant stakes to play for, with a chance to improve their seed in the G-MAC Tournament next week and still an outside chance at sneaking into the fourth seed and potentially hosting a home playoff game if they win and results fall their way elsewhere in the G-MAC.
Photo by Reva Ludwig