TIFFIN, Ohio - Tiffin women's basketball used a big second quarter to build an eight-point halftime lead on Lake Erie, and held on late to take a 71-65 victory.
The win is the Dragons' second in as many games, and came as TU honored seniors Ali Schirmer, Allie Miller, Mary Redmond, and Shelby Haworth in their final home contests.
Schirmer totalled 11 points and four assists on the afternoon, while Miller added eight points and Redmond six. Jasmine Watts had a monster game down low, scoring a career-high 15 points and grabbing 11 rebounds for her third double-double of the season. The freshman also added three more blocks to bring her season total to 35 and break into the top-10 single-season blocked shots list at TU.
The Dragons outshot the Storm 45% to 42.4% from the field and 38.1% to 35% from deep. A big difference in the game came on the turnover end, as Tiffin forced 24 Lake Erie turnovers while only committing 16. The Dragons also outscored the Storm 24-15 off of those turnovers.
The game started slow for both teams, as they played to just an 11-11 tie after the opening quarter.
Tiffin turned it on in the second period, though, opening the frame on an 11-0 run. Sarah Cummings got things started with a pair of free throws followed by a Watts layup. After a Georgia Perrott-Hunt bucket, Miller drained a jumper and a triple to make it 22-11 in favor of TU with 6:55 to play before the half.
The Dragons extended their lead to 12, 31-19, just before the break, but a quick 4-0 Storm run brought the margin to eight at halftime.
Watts opened the second-half with back-to-back layups to up the lead back to 12, and Redmond made it 13 moments later with a triple to put Tiffin up 38-25 with 7:37 to play in the third.
The Storm cut the deficit to nine two minutes later, but eight unanswered points that followed gave the Dragons their biggest lead of the game at 17. Perrott-Hunt started the run with a three and a layup, Watts capped it with an and-one that put TU up 49-32 with 3:25 to play in the quarter.
Tiffin still held a 12-point lead at the start of the fourth, but saw that quickly dwindle to just three, 59-56, two minutes into the final period. Still clinging to a three-point advantage, 63-60, with three and a half minutes left, a Jensen Hiegel jumper and Watts layup built the lead up to seven.
The Dragons were able to play stifling defense over the last half of the fourth quarter, holding the Storm to just nine points over the final eight minutes as they held on for the 71-65 win.
Tiffin will now travel to West Virginia next week for their final two games of the 2018-19 season, facing Alderson Broaddus on Thursday and Davis & Elkins on Saturday.