By Andrew Korba
Junior Cenzie Yoder scored a team high 18 points as the No. 9 Ohio Northern women's basketball team topped Heidelberg 76-65 on Wednesday night at Seiberling Gymnasium.
ONU, who has now won 12 in a row, improves to 13-1 on the year and remains atop the OAC with a 7-0 mark. The Student Princes fall to 5-9, 1-6.
Yoder went 7-of-12 from the field and also grabbed nine rebounds.
Senior Joanna Snyder added 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting, senior Morgan Dumbaugh scored 14 and freshman Brooke Espenschied added 11.
Yoder sunk a jumper to cap off an 8-2 run and give ONU a 48-37 lead with 12:06 remaining in the game.
But Heidelberg would come back and use an 11-1 run to cut the Polar Bear lead to 53-52 with 9:58 left.
After the Polar Bears pushed their lead back to 59-54, Heidelberg went on a 5-0 run to tie things up at 59-59 with just over seven minutes to play.
But Northern countered with an 10-0 run to open back up a 69-59 lead with 4:06 left.
Yoder scored four points during the run, while senior Katie Mengos, Snyder and Espenschied each scored a basket to help ONU regain the lead.
Heidelberg would get no closer than eight points the rest of the game.
The first half was tight as it featured eight lead changes and three ties.
With the score tied at 16-16, Northern got a three pointer from Dumbaugh and a jumper from senior Katie Jones to open up a 21-16 lead.
The Student Princes would stay close and cut the ONU lead to 30-29, but Northern closed the half on a 8-1 run to take a 38-30 lead into the break.
ONU was 29-of-58 (50 percent) from the field, while Heidelberg was 21-of-49 (42.9 percent).
The Polar Bears were a solid 13-of-15 (86.7 percent) compared to 15-of-23 (65.2 percent) for the Student Princes.
Northern won the rebounding battle by a 34-25 margin and also scored 18 points off of turnovers, while HU only scored six.
Ohio Northern be in action again on Saturday, when they hit the road to face Capital at 3 p.m.
