SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Visiting Capital held off a late charge by Wittenberg to secure a 61-53 non-conference victory in women's basketball action on Monday night. The win was the 500th at Capital for head coach Dixie Jeffers and senior Caitlin Elsass surpassed the 1,000 point plateau as well.
Jeffers now has a 500-132 record in her 23rd season at Capital and a 552-154 mark in 26 seasons overall as a collegiate head coach. She ranks 27th amongst all active coaches regardless of division and sixth amongst NCAA Division III head coaches all-time.
"Capital has been very good to me," Jeffers said. "I tell people that I bleed purple and I think that I do. This accomplishment really is a tribute to all of the student athletes that played for me at Capital."
The historic victory came at Wittenberg's Pam Evans Smith Arena named for the former Tiger women's basketball coach who began her career at WU the same season that Jeffers started at CU - 1986-1987. The duo played against each other eight times between 1988 and 2006 before Smith lost her battle to breast cancer just over 20 months ago. Both teams wore pink t-shirts in Smith's memory on Monday night during warmups.
"It is a very emotional time for me to reach this milestone here," Jeffers noted. "I thought a great deal of Pam. We were friends."
Elsass (Batavia, Ohio/Clermont Northeastern HS) finished with 19 points after hitting on 8-of-13 shots from the floor to become the 17th player in Capital women's basketball history to surpass 1,000 career points. Her jumper in the paint with 4:31 left in the contest put her amongst the best in Crusader history. She finished the contest with 1,002 career points to rank 15th on the CU scoring list in just 77 career games played.
"She is a junior in term of eligibility (after getting hurt her first year)." Jeffers commented. "For her to do those things in three short years is a milestone. She was double and triple teamed the whole night long. She is a great player and we are fortunate to have her on our side."
Perhaps the only player on the floor who did not know the milestone was coming was Elsass who was unaware of how close she was to reaching the 1,000-point barrier.
"I did not even know that I was close to 1,000 points," Elsass said. "Coach called a timeout and said, ‘You are two points away from 1,000 and we are going to get it right here.' It took a couple of times and the pass from Daniele (Sanna) was the one that got it done."
Classmate Daniele Sanna (Pickerington, Ohio/Pickerington North HS) followed with 15 points while junior Kristen Richardson (Oxford, Ohio/Talawanda HS) and freshman Hilary Kuhns (Sidney, Ohio/Fairfield HS) added nine each for the Crusaders in a winning effort.
Capital held Wittenberg to 33.3 percent shooting from the floor and forced the Tigers into 23 turnovers, but a 19-point second half lead got down to as close as six before the Crusaders closed with a 6-for-8 performance from the free throw line in the final 84 seconds of the game.
CU cruised to a 31-19 halftime lead behind nine first-half points from Elsass and eight by Sanna as the Crusaders hit on 14-of-30 shots from the floor in the opening 20 minutes of play.
After the two sides traded the momentum to begin the second half, Sanna made a layup with 16:10 on the clock to begin a 16-6 Capital surge over the next 8:46 that gave the Crusaders their biggest lead of the contest at 49-30 with 7:24 left.
Wittenberg would cut the Capital lead down to 11 before Elsass got the ball in the paint and hit a jumper while getting fouled with 4:31 remaining in the contest for her 1,000th career point and put CU on top by 13 at 51-38.
A three-pointer on the next trip down the court allowed the Tigers to setup their full court pressure and force the Crusaders into a turnover. After a missed shot, Kelsey Casey was fouled on an offensive rebound attempt and with the double bonus made both shots at the free throw line to pull WU within single digits at 51-43 with 3:47 remaining.
Elsass responded with another layup for Capital, but Wittenberg would not go away. The Tigers hit three treys in the final 2:16 of the contest to get as close as six before the Crusader free throw shooting would preserve a 61-53 CU road victory.
Capital returns home for the final two regular season home games. CU begins with Heidelberg on Parents' Night Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. followed by Otterbein on Senior Day Saturday that begins with the Crusader men playing the Cardinals at 2 p.m. followed by the women at 4 p.m. The first-place Capital women's basketball team needs just one more victory to secure its OAC-record ninth OAC Regular Season Title and top seed in the OAC Tournament.