BEREA, OHIO — Baldwin-Wallace College senior forward Thad Davis (Elyria/ Open Door) has been named as this week’s Ohio Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for the fourth time in seven weeks this year and for the sixth time during the past two seasons. Davis will share the honor this week with Mount Union College junior center Kyle Karpinski.
Davis earned the honor for his efforts in games against John Carroll University and Marietta College. B-W is currently ranked 22nd nationally in Division III and is 12-3 overall and 5-3 in the OAC.
For the week, Davis totalled 53 points, 23 rebounds and six blocked shots. He canned 22-of-33 shots from the floor (.667), including 14-of-17 in a 34-point effort against Marietta. He also led B-W with 15 rebounds and three blocked shots. Against JCU, Davis had 19 points, eight rebounds and blocked three shots.
Ironically, a Davis has won the OAC Player of the Week Award the past four weeks. Thad won it twice and then last week his younger brother, B-W sophomore forward Tori Davis (Open Door), earned the honor. Tori has won it three times, including twice a year ago.
Thad Davis enters Wednesday's game at Heidelberg College as B-W's fifth all-time leading scorer with 1,652 career points and fourth in rebounding with 846 career caroms.
The B-W men are back in action on Wednesday (Jan. 19) in Tiffin when the Yellow Jackets play Heidelberg at 7:30 pm.
Junior point guard Nikki Altenweg (Perry) has been tabbed as this week’s OAC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week. Altenweg earned the honor for leading the 11-4 overall Yellow Jackets who lead the OAC with a 7-1 mark to wins against JCU (72-60) and Marietta (93-54). Altenweg and the Yellow Jackets have won five straight games.
For the week, Altenweg scored 36 points, grabbed seven rebounds, made six steals and passed for three assists. She scored a career-high 18 points against John Carroll and canned two three-pointers. She followed that effort by tying her career-high with 18 points against Marietta, including canning all four of her three-point attempts.
For the season, Altenweg tops the Yellow Jackets in scoring at 10.8 points-per-game and in both assists (57) and steals (44). In addition, Altenweg currently ranks ninth all-time at B-W in steals with 127 and 14th with 207 assists. For the second straight year, Altenweg leads the OAC in assist-to-turnover ratio.
The Yellow Jacket women are back in action on Tuesday (Jan. 18) when they host Heidelberg at the Rudolph Ursprung Gymnasium in Berea at 7:30 p.m.
Freshman swimmer Dave Fournier (Perrysburg/ Toledo St. John’s), has been named as this week’s OAC Men’s Swimmer of the Week.
Fournier earned the honor for his efforts in a Yellow Jacket dual meet victory against Erie (N.Y.) Community College, 144-54, last Saturday in Berea. In that meet, Fournier won the 50-yard freestyle in 22.36 seconds and the 50-yard free in 50.03 seconds.
Ambica Iyengar, a native of the country of India who was swimming her first northern college meet and is a freshman at B-W, was named as the OAC Women’s Swimmer of the Week. She earned the honor for her efforts in a 122-82 dual match victory against Erie (N.Y.) C.C. Iyengar, who came to the United States from India just after Christmas, has only been on the B-W campus for two weeks and is already making an impact on the women’s swim team.
Iyengar won the 200-yard freestyle (2:01.62) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:40.27) and swam on the winning 400-yard medley relay team (4:20.99). In her first varsity meet, two weeks ago in Florida, Iyengar won the 50-meter freestyle by more than 1.5 seconds and beat a field of Division II swimmers from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Slippery Rock (Pa.) State University.
Both the B-W men and women will seek an undefeated OAC regular season this Saturday when they travel to Ada and Ohio Northern for the final OAC regular season meet. The meet is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. in the ONU Sports Center.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, please contact B-W Sports Information Director Kevin Ruple by telephone at 440-826-2327, by FAX machine at 440-826-2329 or via e-mail at kruple@bw.edu.
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