Saturday: Hope's drive hits 55

More news about: Hope | Marietta | Mary Hardin-Baylor
Dec 11, 2021
 
Hope All-American Kenedy Schoonveld hit big shots from inside and outside the arc in the fourth quarter at Trine.
 Hope College athletics file photo


No. 1 Hope went on the road and beat No. 7 Trine to clear the toughest obstacle in its regular season schedule and push its winning streak to 55 games. Elsewhere Marietta upended No. 3 John Carroll and the Mary Hardin-Baylor men gave their school another reason to celebrate.

Hope made a trio of three-pointers in the opening minutes of the second half to build an 11-point lead and then held off Trine the rest of the way in a 70-61 road victory. Hope had a double-digit lead early in the game, but Trine battled back and took the lead, 34-32, on Kayla Wildman's layup in the final minutes of the second quarter. The lead lasted about 30 seconds before Claire Baguley scored a fast break layup to pull Hope even at 34 before the half.

The Flying Dutch opened the second half with three 3-pointers, two of them coming from Kenedy Schoonveld, and pushed their advantage back to 11 at 45-34. The Thunder again battled back and got as close as four with two minutes to play but Schoonveld grabbed an offensive rebound and scored to edge the advantage back up to six. Trine did not score another field goal the rest of the way. 

Schoonveld finished with 20 points on 7 for 10 shooting with four 3-pointers for Hope (10-0, 3-0 MIAA). Wildman scored 15 points for Trine (8-2, 3-1 MIAA) which shot just six for 21 from behind the arc.

Hope's winning streak is now 55 games, which is the fifth longest in Division III women's basketball history. The longest winning streak belongs to Washington U. which won 81 consecutive games from 1998 through 2001 followed by prior streaks by Amherst (68), Thomas More (61) and Capital (60).

Six days after losing at Baldwin Wallace, Marietta showed it will be a force in the OAC race by knocking off No. 3 John Carroll on its floor, 81-80. Hannah Schill gave the Pioneers the lead, 81-77, when she rolled to the rim for a layup with 46 seconds left. Nicole Heffington answered with a three pointer for the John Carroll (7-1, 3-1 OAC0 and then Olivia Nagy swatted the ball away from Marietta to give John Carroll a chance to win the game. The Blue Streaks called time out and got a good look but Abby Adler's jumper was off the mark and the ball bounced out of bounds as time expired.

Devin Hefner scored 23 points for Marietta (8-1, 3-1 OAC) which will host the rematches with Baldwin Wallace and John Carroll. Speaking of BW, the Yellow Jackets defeated Otterbein 65-51 thanks to a 40-12 bench-scoring advantage. Lilly Edwards scored the 1000th point of her career in the win.

On the men's side, No. 9 Mary Hardin-Baylor closed overtime on an 11-0 run and rallied past previously-unbeaten LeTourneau, 91-86. The Crusaders looked like they might win the game in regulation until LeTourenau's Warren Richardson hit a jump shot with 13 seconds left and sent the game to overtime. Jordan Pride's three-pointer put the Yellow Jackets up six with less than three minutes to play in overtime, but Luke Feely scored a layup to key the Crusaders' game-winning flury. 

Feely had a double-double (23 points, 14 rebounds) and Ty Prince (19 points, 14 rebounds) added another for Mary Hardin-Baylor (7-1, 4-1 ASC). Richardson had 21 points and 11 boards in 40 minutes for LeTourneau (8-1, 4-1 ASC).