Over the course of the spring and the summer months, one Tiffin Athletics program will be highlighted every Saturday on their accomplishments during the past year. This week's Saturday Spotlight focuses on the women's basketball program.
Looking to improve after just missing the GMAC Tournament in 2018-19, Tiffin and second-year head coach Jessie Ivey was selected to finish ninth in the 2019-20 Preseason Coaches Poll.
Tiffin kicked things off on the road at the Crossover Conference Tournament, dropping two close games to Illinois-Springfield and McKendree. The Dragons bounced back right away though with three-straight wins, defeating Mount Vernon Nazarene 83-69, Wright State-Lake 92-56, and Salem 82-80.
In their final game before GMAC play, TU picked up another victory with an 83-73 home win over Slippery Rock during Thanksgiving break. Conference play started on a high note with an 84-77 overtime win at Trevecca as Brooke Wesner notched a career-best 29 points.
The Dragons would earn one more victory before Christmas break with a 58-53 win at Purdue Northwest, and built off of that to dominate Ohio Valley 75-46 when conference play resumed on Jan. 4.
After a tough losing streak, things turned around on Jan. 30 as Tiffin would finish the regular season with six wins in their last eight games. The run started with a 79-72 overtime win at Alderson Broaddus, and after a tight loss at Ohio Dominican followed, TU defeated both Ursuline (81-71) and Lake Erie (76-69) at home.
The Dragons then avenged a loss earlier in the season to Hillsdale, going on the road to defeat the Chargers 80-73. Tiffin nearly got the revenge victory at Findlay as well but fell short in the final minutes despite a career-high 30 points from freshman Savanah Richards.
With two games at home left in the regular season and their first postseason appearance since 2012 hanging in the balance, Tiffin took control of their own destiny with another win over Ohio Valley and a historic 69-64 double-overtime upset of No. 17 Kentucky Wesleyan.
The win was the first time in TU's DII-era that the Dragons defeated a team ranked in the top-25. Following the weekend, standout Aarion Nichols earned GMAC Player of the Week honors after coming close to a triple-double with 13 points, 15 rebounds, and five assists.
Tiffin earned the seven-seed in the GMAC Championships, but had to go on the road to visit the same Panthers that they had just defeated three days earlier. Tiffin hung with KWC for most of the game, but the Panthers pulled away in the second half to put an end to the Dragons' great season.
Later that week, Nichols was named to the All-GMAC squad, marking the first Dragon to earn all-conference honors since the 2012-13 season.