BEREA, OHIO –  Freshman center Chelsea Meckstrom scored a team-high 12 points as the Wilmington College women's basketball team upset first place Baldwin-Wallace College, 61-53, today (Saturday, January 29, 2011) in an Ohio Athletic Conference game in the Rudolph Ursprung Gymnasium in the Lou Higgins Center in Berea .  This was the first game of a women's and men's doubleheader. The Yellow Jacket and Quaker men tip off at 4:00 p.m.

With its win, Wilmington won its fifth straight game and  improved  to 10-9 overall and 7-5 in the OAC. B-W, now 15-4 overall and 10-2 in the OAC, was led by sophomore guard Racel Rossman's (Olmsted Falls) career-high 13 points. The Yellow Jacket loss ended a five-game winning streak.

In the first half, Wilmington senior guard Olivia Waters made one of two foul shots to open the scoring, B-W freshman guard Jessica Lairson (Louisville) then scored four straight point to give the Yellow Jackets a 4-1 lead at the 17:56 mark. Wilmington then came back and scored the next 10 points to retake the lead at 11-4 with 10:01 left.  Lairson, who had 11 points, ended the drought at 9:54 with a jumper and then sophomore guard Jessica Carpenter (North Canton Hoover) made a three-pointer at 9:36 to make the score 11-9.

 Following a Quaker basket, B-W freshman forward Lexi Rohrbach (Tiffin/ Columbian) grabbed a rebound and scored and on its next possession Rossman made two foul shots to tie the game at 13-13 with 7:47 left.
A 6-3 run by the Quakers gave them back the lead at 19-16 before Rohrbach made a pair of foul shots at 5:18 to make the score 19-18. A three-pointer by Wilmington senior guard Amy Bricker at 4:43 and a jumper by Waters at 4:02 gave the Quakers a 24-18 lead. Another 4-2 run, capped by a Meckstrom layup at 2:33, gave Wilmington its largest lead at 28-20. A basket by Lairson at 2:08 was the final points of the first stanza.

In the second half, B-W opened with a 5-0 run as Lairson canned a trey at 18:51 and Rossman stole the inbounds pass and fed Carpenter for a layup at 18:38 to cut Wilmington's lead to 28-27.  B-W then scored eight of the next 14 points to take a 35-34 lead at the 15:13 mark when Rossman made a jump shot.

Undaunted, Wilmington regained the lead at 44-35 with 10 straight points before Head Coach Cheri Harrer called a timeout. A 6-2 run by B-W cut the lead to 46-41, but the Quakers came right back with four points of their own to push it back to a nine-point lead at 50-41.

B-W would then outscore Wilmington 9-5 to get as close as 55-50 with 32.2 seconds left when sophomore guard Olivia French (Bucyrus/ Colonel Crawford) made a three-pointer. Then following two made and two missed foul shots by the Quakers, French canned another triple to make the score 57-53 with 12.8 seconds left. But a four Quaker foul shots then ended matters.

Today's game was taped and will be televised by SportsTime Ohio tonight at 6:00 p.m.  The B-W versus Wilmington men's game will air at 8:00 p.m.

The Yellow Jackets are back in action on Wednesday, February 2 when they travel to Westerville to play Otterbein University in the Rike Center at 7:30 p.m.  In addition, fans can listen to all of the action on either campus radio station WBWC, 88.3 FM, or via the WBWC Internet web site at www.wbwc.com.

FOR MORE B-W SPORTS INFORMATION, please contact Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327 and e-mail at kruple@bw.edu or Assistant SID Jeff Miller by phone at 440-826-2780 and e-mail at jefmille@bw.edu. Fans can access the latest B-W athletics information at www.bw.edu/athletics and we invite you to join us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bwathletics.