Fourth-Quarter Rally Gives Titans Second Straight Sweet 16 Appearance
The UW-Oshkosh women's basketball team is headed back to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III Championship for the second straight season.
Leah Porath scored 16 of her game-high 27 points in the fourth quarter as the UW-Oshkosh erased a double-digit deficit and pulled away for a 67-60 victory over Bethany Lutheran College (Minn.) on Saturday (March 7) to clinch a berth into the third round of the NCAA postseason in Arden Hills, Minn.
UW-Oshkosh (20-10) opened the fourth quarter with 18 straight points to turn a 52-40 deficit into a 58-52 lead with 3:36 remaining in the game. Porath, the WIAC Player of the Year, accounted for eight points and Nikki Arneson added five during the Titans' decisive 18-point run.
Bethany Lutheran College (24-4) pulled within 58-56 at the 2:25 mark, but Porath drained a 3-pointer 27 seconds later, and UW-Oshkosh maintained at least a three-point lead the rest of the way. Porath later split a pair of free throws to extend the Titan advantage to 64-60 with 33 seconds to play. The Vikings missed a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession, and Arneson and Porath combined to go 3-for-4 at the free throw line over the last 18 seconds to preserve the win.
UW-Oshkosh advances to play Friday (March 13) in the third round of the Division III Championship against Loras College (Iowa). Loras College (25-4), ranked 13th in the country by D3hoops.com, won the Greencastle (Ind.) Regional with a 71-60 decision over host fourth-ranked DePauw University (28-2) on Saturday.
Loras College slipped past UW-Oshkosh, 88-83 in overtime, in the teams' most recent matchup Nov. 16 in Dubuque, Iowa.
Porath finished Saturday's Arden Hills Regional championship game shooting 10 of 17 from the field while adding six rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals. Porath, who has scored in double figures 33 times in the past 34 games, now has 524 points on the year to become the first Titan to surpass 500 points in a season since Wendy Wangerin had 559 en route to garnering Division III Player of the Year honors and leading UW-Oshkosh to the 1996 national championship.
Arenson had 12 points and 11 rebounds for her first career double-double while Brooke Freitag contributed 11 points for the Titans, who reached 20 wins for the eighth consecutive season despite starting the year with an 11-9 record.
Eight Titans scored, including Karsyn Rueth and Olivia Campbell with six and five points, respectively. Campbell added seven rebounds, six assists, three steals and three blocks while committing just one turnover in 40 minutes played. Freitag, Porath and Rueth each knocked down two 3-pointers.
UW-Oshkosh shot 25 of 59 (.424) from the field, 7-for-25 (.280) from 3-point range and 10 of 18 (.556) at the free throw line. The Titans, the national leaders with 11.9 turnovers per game, concluded the regional final with advantages of 35-32 in rebounds, 13-9 in assists, 10-19 in turnovers and 8-4 in steals.
Bethany Lutheran College, which established a school record for wins, ended Saturday shooting 38.8 percent (19-49) from the floor, 34.6 percent (9-26) from beyond the 3-point arc and 72.2 percent (13-18) at the foul line. The Vikings, who had a 4-3 edge in blocks, were ranked seventh in the nation with 465 made free throws and ninth with 642 attempts at the foul line.
The Vikings' Abby Olson scored 12 of her team-leading 18 points in the third quarter. Hanna Geistfeld, the Player of the Year in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference, had 14 points and a team-high eight rebounds and four assists for Bethany Lutheran College. Geistfeld, who shot 3-for-8 from the field, entered the night ninth in the country with a .606 field goal percentage on the way to averaging 21.0 points and 10.4 rebounds per game.
UW-Oshkosh held Bethany Lutheran College scoreless until the 5:40 mark of the first quarter on the way to opening the game with a 3-0 lead. The Titans stretched their lead to 13-3 following a Rueth 3-pointer and went into the second period with a 15-6 cushion as the Viking went just 2-for-10 from the field.
Trailing 26-18 with 4:21 left in the first half, Bethany Lutheran College closed out the second quarter with an 11-1 run to claim a 29-27 lead at intermission as Olson hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining in the second period.
The Vikings outscored the Titans, 23-13, in the third quarter to build their largest lead at 52-40 entering the final period, but the Titans rallied with their game-altering 18-point onslaught that began with a Freitag layup and continued with a Porath jumper. Porath and Arneson then converted three-point plays on consecutive possessions to cut the UW-Oshkosh deficit to 52-48 with 8:07 left.
Porath made another jumper to pull the Titans within two points before Campbell drilled a 3-pointer that provided UW-Oshkosh the lead for good at 53-52 at the 5:09 mark. Arneson collected an offensive rebound and scored in the lane, and Porath capped the Titans' 18-point run with a 3-pointer for a 58-52 cushion with 3:46 to go.
Geistfeld ended the Vikings' nearly seven-minute scoreless drought when she split a pair of free throws to cut their deficit to 58-53 with 3:23 remaining. Bethany Lutheran College, which missed six field goal attempts and committed five turnovers during UW-Oshkosh's 18-point run, pulled within 58-56 on a Kenlie Pytleski 3-pointer with 2:25 left.
UW-Oshkosh has won each of its three meetings with Bethany Lutheran College since the 2009-10 campaign. The Vikings, who were eliminated in the first round during their NCAA postseason debut last year, fell to 1-2 in the national tournament.
UW-Oshkosh, making its 16th NCAA postseason trip and sixth in the last seven seasons, was the 1996 national champion and 1995 runner-up. The Titans, who have won at least one game in each of their past 13 NCAA appearances and boast a 31-14 record in the national tournament, made previous trips to the third round of the Division III Championship in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2014, 2017 and 2019.
UW-Oshkosh Women's Basketball Postgame Press Conference
NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Arden Hills Regional Website
NCAA Division III Women's Basketball • NCAA.com Website
NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship Interactive Bracket
2020 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship Digital Program
Photos courtesy of Caleb Williams, d3photography.com