By Tim Glon
Senior Katie Mengos set the school's all-time career steals record and No. 8-ranked Ohio Northern rallied for a 66-55 Ohio Athletic Conference women's basketball victory at Baldwin Wallace on Wednesday night at Ursprung Gymnasium.
The Polar Bears run their win streak to 15 games and improve to 16-1 overall and remain undefeated in OAC action with an 11-0 mark. The Yellow Jackets fall to 10-7, 5-5.
Mengos had a game-high four steals on the night, giving her 183 for her career and breaking the previous record of 181 set from 2006-09 by Emily Culbertson.
She also had six points and dished out three assists.
Senior Joanna Snyder had a double-double with game-highs of 21 points and 11 rebounds and senior Morgan Dumbaugh scored 17 points for ONU.
BW was led by Jessica Lairson with 15 points, Jessica Carpenter with 11 points and Lexi Rohrbach with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
The Yellow Jackets appeared to take control of the game early, racing to a 21-7 lead with 10:27 left in the half.
After an ONU timeout at the 8:49 mark and facing 23-9 deficit, the Polar Bears rallied with a 21-0 run to go up 30-23 with 2:08 left in the half.
The lead was 30-27 at intermission and BW scored first in the second half to pull within 30-29 with 18:09 to go.
But ONU would go on a 16-2 run to take a commanding 46-31 lead with 9:28 left and the margin would not get below eight points the rest of the night.
In all, Ohio Northern would outscore BW 37-8 over a span of 19:21 after trailing 23-9.
Each team was an identical 20 of 57 from the floor for 35.1 percent, but the Polar Bears would out-score the Yellow Jackets 25-11 from the foul line.
ONU won the rebounding battle by a 45-39 margin.
The Polar Bears will return to action Saturday with a 3 p.m. road contest at Marietta.
