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UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS — Wilmington College dropped a 59-58 heartbreaker at John Carroll in Ohio Athletic Conference action Saturday afternoon. The loss leaves Wilmington at 2-3 in the OAC, 3-4 overall. John Carroll improves to 2-2 in the conference, 3-5 for the season.

“I’m disappointed with the outcome," Wilmington head coach Jerry Scheve said. "We played well in spurts. We did a nice job of keeping their point guard Lee Jennings in check, but probably didn’t do a good enough job of guarding other people.”

Both teams found that big leads were tough to maintain.

Olivia Waters (Cincinnati/Purcell Marian) scored six points in the game’s opening minutes as the Lady Quakers built a 12-4 lead. A pair of free throws by Allie Meranda (Georgetown) stretched the advantage to 19-10 at 10:18.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever got off to a good start at John Carroll,” Scheve said. “I was surprised with how well we got started, but the only thing that counts is what’s on the board at the end.”

John Carroll closed the half on a 16-6 run to take a 37-32 lead at the intermission.

The Blue Streaks continued to surge into the second half and took a 49-37 lead on a Sadie Zander 3-pointer at 14:49.

Wilmington, however, answered with a 14-4 burst that featured six points each from Kortney Kin (Upper Sandusky/Riverdale) and Steph Prechtel (Wadsworth) to pull within 53-51 at 6:37.

“We showed a lot of composure and came back one play at a time, just playing our game to fight our way back in it,” Scheve said.

The Lady Quakers went ahead, 58-57, when Kin found Prechtel for a bucket in the paint with 1:04 to play. John Carroll’s Caitlin Sureck scored what proved to be the final points of the game as the Blue Streaks escaped with the win.

Kin led three Lady Quakers in double figures with 17 points. Waters scored 11 points and pulled down eight rebounds, and Meranda added 10 points. Claire Brown (Batavia/Glen Este) added eight points and eight rebounds.

Wilmington out-rebounded JCU, 50-38.

The Lady Quakers will face Mount Vernon Nazarene to open play in the Defiance College Tournament next Friday.

“It doesn’t get any easier. We’re still not playing at the level we need to be at. We’ve got a week to prepare for exams and find ways to get better as a basketball team,” Scheve said.