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BEREA — Wilmington College opened the Ohio Athletic Conference season with a hard-fought 63-58 loss at Baldwin-Wallace Saturday afternoon.

The loss drops the Lady Quakers to 1-2 overall while the Yellow Jackets improve to 2-2.

“We did a lot of things well, overall,” Wilmington head coach Jerry Scheve said. “We definitely rebounded the ball a lot better today. We just made really crucial mistakes throughout the game, mistakes that led to easy baskets for Baldwin-Wallace. We didn’t make plays on both ends of the court in the last three or four minutes.”

Wilmington’s bid for a win on the road received a setback in the first half when All-America post Kortney Kin (Upper Sandusky/Riverdale) picked up two early fouls and played just four minutes in the opening frame.

The Lady Quakers matched the Jackets’ defensive intensity and stayed close, trailing, 24-21, at the break.

“Kortney is obviously a big part of our offense, but we competed, scratched and clawed to stay in the game,” Scheve said.

Kin dominated the second half. The senior scored five straight points to pull Wilmington into a 26-26 tie at 17:52. Seven minutes later, Claire Brown (Batavia/Glen Este) hit a 3-pointer to give the Lady Quakers their first lead of the game, 39-38.

Baldwin-Wallace regained the lead and pushed the margin to 51-45 on a pair of Nancy Coulter free throws at 5:02.

Kin stepped out to drill a triple and then converted a pair of foul shots to cut the deficit to 57-56 at 1:22. The Jackets sealed the win by connecting on four straight foul shots in the closing seconds.

“We’ve got to execute better in key offensive situations and we’ve got to come up with stops on defense,” Scheve said. “We got the lead, but couldn’t hold it, and at the end of the game we would cut their lead to three and they would move it back up to five.”

Kin led all scorers with 29 points, 23 coming in the second half.

“They didn’t stop Kortney. She got called for a few traveling violations. Baldwin-Wallace played her straight-up, and she’s hard to guard one-on-one,” Scheve said.

Olivia Waters (Cincinnati/Purcell Marian) was a point shy of a double-double, finishing with nine points and 12 rebounds. Brown scored six points and Amy Bricker (Waynesville) handed out seven assists.

Wilmington won the rebounding battle, 38-34.

Jessica Carpenter led the Jackets with 17 points.

“As a team, we just need to play with more confidence in ourselves and what we’re doing. When we do that we’ll be fine,” Scheve said.

Wilmington will host Muskingum 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.