By Ben Stroup
Top-seeded Delaware Hayes handled its business Wednesday, rolling past visiting Big Walnut and Olentangy Orange by respective scores of 65-9 and 70-9 to advance to next Wednesday’s Division I Regional Wrestling Dual Team Tournament semifinals and finals.
The Pacers hammered the Golden Eagles in their first match of the night before trumping the Pioneers to move on. Max Wright headlined a lengthy list of Hayes winners, picking up the 100th victory of his career.
Big Walnut beat Newark 51-30 and Orange handled Olentangy 63-20 to set up their respective showdowns with Hayes.
Next up, Delaware will take on second-seeded Watkins Memorial, which notched wins of 42-18 over Westerville Central and 39-37 over Mount Vernon Wednesday night, in next week’s 5-A championship. The winner of that match will face the winner of the 5-B championship for the right to be crowned the Region 5 champ.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Claude Gray sank a pair of free throws to give Ohio Wesleyan a 90-89 lead with four seconds to go, but Spencer Williams nailed a pair of his own with one second left as host Wooster won Wednesday’s key NCAC showdown 91-90.
With the win, Wooster (13-5, 9-2 NCAC) moved into a first-place tie with OWU (16-2, 9-2 NCAC).
The game was tight from start to finish. Wooster led 44-42 at the half before OWU won the second half by a 48-47 margin to account for the final score.
The Bishops, who shot nearly 50 percent from the field (31-of-63), were led by Seth Clark and Matt Jeske, who finished with 18 points apiece. Nate Axelrod was also solid, closing with 17 points and 10 assists, while Ben Simpson finished with 16 in the setback.
Alex Lalonde led Wooster with a game-best 23 points on the strength of four three-pointers.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Megan Kuether poured in a team-leading 16 points and three other Bishops scored in double figures, but it wasn’t enough as visiting Wittenberg held on for a 66-62 NCAC win over host Ohio Wesleyan Wednesday at Branch Rickey Arena.
Down seven with less than two minutes to go, Taylor Dickson drained a deep three-pointer to slice the OWU (3-16, 2-8 NCAC) deficit to four. Kelly Still then made it a two-point game with a steal and layin with 30 seconds to go, but Becca Ziska hit a pair of free throws on the Tigers’ (5-11, 4-5 NCAC) ensuing possession to smooth out the scoring summary.
Dickson backed Kuether with 12 points while Erin Delaney and Hanna Fedorka each had 10 points in the setback.
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Follow Ben Stroup on Twitter @delgazette_ben.
