January 28, 1999

TU women warm up for road trip by plastering ND

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

Call it the calm before the storm.

Wednesday night the Tiffin University women's basketball team had an easy time of it, plastering Notre Dame 89-48. But now comes the hard part -- four American Mideast Conference road games in-a-row.

And even though the Dragons (9-8, 6-4) will return to the Gillmor Center just one more time the rest of this season, coach Leslie Mugg feels like things are swaying in her team's direction.

''Our goal right now is to win every game from here on out,'' Mugg said. ''And we're right there. Teams (ahead of us) are losing like we need them to; we just need to keep on winning. And if we keep on winning we can be right there in third place and that's another one of our goals.''

Against the Falcons (4-13) victory was a mere formality.

The Notre Dame roster featured no one taller than 5-9 and its starting lineup consisted of a trio of 5-4 guards.

And with Tiffin's Melanie Sears (6-3) and Kellie Jakubowski (6-0) pluging the middle the Dragons outrebounded their guests, 57-27.

Sears and Jakubowski did more to distract the Falcon shooters than anything. They combined for just six rebounds, but it was Jill Moldenhauer who led the Dragons in both scoring (19) and in rebounding (12).

''I always pick on (Jill) and tell her that she's weak,'' Mugg said. ''I always make it a challenge and tell her 'Your're weak.' Sometimes I can be serious so she's out to prove me wrong. She took what they gave her tonight and added a little more to it.''

Molednhauer hit four jump shots in the opening four minutes of the game to help the Dragons to a 13-5 lead. Jakubowski, Sears and Lisa Poe all scored twice to keep the run going, and by the 10-minute mark Tiffin was well on its way to victory with a 27-11 lead.

Moldenhauer finished the first half with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Steph Weber contributed eight points and four boards, and the Dragons had a 44-27 halftime lead.

''We wanted to run the ball when we had the opportunity because we thought we transitioned a little better than them,'' Mugg said. ''My exact words before the game were that if we got down there and didn't have the numbers, that we needed to run our offense. At times we got away from that because we were able to get and run so much.''

Sears and Weber backed Moldenhauer with 14 points apiece, while Jakubowski closed with 10 points. In all, 12 Dragons dented the scoring column.

Jen Cepik was the only Falcon in double figures. She finished with 19.