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Wilmington College raced to a 21-4 lead in the first 12 minutes of play and went on to post a 61-37 win over Rose-Hulman in first-round play of the Wilmington Inn/Damon's Tip-Off Tournament.

The Lady Quakers are now 1-0 on the season while Rose-Hulman drops to 0-1.

"The main thing we did is put this game behind us," Wilmington head coach Jerry Scheve said. "We got the first-game jitters out of the way. Our freshmen are now officially college basketball players and the three that played all got their first baskets."

Wilmington did a majority of its offensive damage from downtown. The Lady Quakers hit 12 of 27 3-pointers, including four bombs from junior Allie Meranda (Georgetown).

Meranda led Wilmington with 12 points and Kortney Kin (Upper Sandusky/Riverdale) scored 11. Olivia Waters (Cincinnati/Purcell Marian) scored six points and led Wilmington with nine boards. For the game, Wilmington won the rebounding battle, 40-36, numbers that Scheve said need to improve.

"The rebounding is not a win. That's a big loss," Scheve said. "We didn't rebound the ball well at all. We gave up too many offensive rebounds and didn't get enough offensive rebounds. I thought we were played more physical. That's what we have to do."

Wilmington's defense held the Engineers to 35 percent shooting from the field, but connected on just 34 percent on the other end.

"We've got to shoot the ball better. We've been in a shooting slump since May, and I don't know how to get out of it," Scheve said. "We made 12 3-pointers, but we're not going to make 12 3's every game."

Wilmington will face Calvin in the championship game 3 p.m. Saturday. Calvin defeated Marian, 68-50, in Friday's other first-round game.

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