Box Score
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Capital University women's basketball team grappled with the Heidelberg University Student Princes and extended its winning streak to seven games with a 70-55 victory, Wednesday night at the Capital Center.
Capital (15-9 overall, 11-6 OAC) made its living in the lane, scoring 34 points in the paint and an additional 23 from the free-throw line. As a result of working their short-range game, the Crusaders shot 41.5 percent from the field while taking only five 3-point attempts.
Not only did the Crusaders hit a high percentage of its shots over the course of the game, but it also took away many scoring opportunities from Heidelberg. Capital forced the Student Princes (9-15, 7-10 OAC) into 28 turnovers, which led to 31 Crusaders points.
The win, Capital's seventh in a row, locks up its spot as the fourth seed in the upcoming Ohio Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Tournament, a seed the team held in last year's run to its 10th OAC Tournament championship. They are now awarded a first-round bye and second round home game against the winner of the No. 5 versus No. 8 game. The game will be on Tuesday, Feb. 24.
Junior guard Nina Napolitano (Akron, Ohio) led the Crusaders with 15 points and also brought down the most rebounds (8). She was a perfect 8-for-8 from the free-throw line and added five steals.
Besting Napolitano's steal count was her counterpart Simonne Gage (Dayton, Ohio) who had a game-high six takeaways. She added four assists, four rebounds and eight points. Gage, too, was perfect in six tries at the charity stripe.
Finishing with double-digit point totals for Capital were Napolitano (15), Kristen Thompson (10), Shelby Sheets (13), and Jenna Erwin (13).
Capital took 27 trips to the free-throw line and connected on 23 of those, good enough to finish at an 85.2 percent success rate. Over their last four games, the Crusaders have now hit 110-137 (.801) of their free throws.
Marisa Liburdi worked the inside of the Capital defense and led the Student Princes with 18 points. Heidelberg currently sits in sixth place in the OAC standings.
The Crusaders will play their final regular season game of the year this Saturday at Baldwin Wallace University at 3 p.m. Full tournament information will be released following the completion of the slate of games around the league that night.
