Rinehart joins 1,000-Point Club, Dysert hits game-winning layup with seven seconds left to upset OAC-leading Capital

Alisha Rinehart

By Jeff Blezien

| Box Score |

ADA — Senior Alisha Rinehart scored the first five points for the Ohio Northern women’s basketball team to join the school’s 1,000-Point Club, and Kara Dysert made the game winning layup with seven seconds left to upset Capital 60-59 Saturday at the ONU Sports Center.

This puts the Polar Bears at 6-8 overall and 4-3 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, while the Crusaders move to 8-3 overall and 5-1 in the OAC.

Capital’s Tara Harper had a chance to close out the game at the free throw line with 25 seconds left, but she missed both attempts and left the door open for the Bears to take control.

Dysert made the game-winning basket after an offensive rebound from Rinehart’s miss to put Northern ahead for good 60-59.

After being down 26-18 with 6:35 left in the first half Capital went on a 9-4 run to end the half down 30-27.

Both teams struggled with turnovers on the day, but Northern capitalized with 21 points off turnovers to Capital’s 13.

“Today was a great team win and a great day for Alisha getting her 1,000th point,” said head coach Michele Durand.

Rinehart had a career high four 3-pointers and registered 21 points to put her seventh on the all time scoring list passing Jacque Strahley.

Dysert led the way with 11 total rebounds and 17 points to record her fifth-career double-double, while Lauren Cassell had a career-high three steals to help the strong defensive effort on the day.

Junior Kristen Richardson of Capital led the Crusaders with 14 points on the day.

Senior Caitlin Elsass finishd right behind her with 11 points and six rebounds, while senior Heather McAlpin led the team with seven rebounds on the day.

The Crusaders shot 15-of-28 from the charity stripe for a game-changing 53.6%.

Northern will return to action 7:30 on Wednesday when they travel to Muskingum.