By Mark DeHaan

BEREA, OH - The Calvin women's basketball team continued early season non-conference play on Friday evening, traveling to Ohio to take part in the Baldwin-Wallace Invitational this weekend. Calvin came out on top in a first round matchup Friday night, defeating Ohio Wesleyan 70-60.

Calvin jumped out to an early 14-3 lead as junior Kayla Engelhard had eight early points, hitting a pair of three-pointers.

The Bishops then cut Calvin's lead to five at 16-12 before a three-pointer by junior Breanna Verkaik extended the Knights lead to 19:12 with 9:07 remaining in the opening half.

Calvin continued to pull away until the Knights held a 35-22 advantage by the end of the first half.

Ohio Wesleyan then jumped on the Knights at the beginning of the second half, fighting back to within two at 41-39 with 13:27 remaining in the game.

Calvin pushed its lead back up to nine at 48-39 with 9:35 left on a layup by junior Hannah Acre.

The Battle Bishops again fought back, cutting the Knights advantage to 56-50 with less than five minutes to play. Calvin responded with a quick layup, and Ohio Wesleyan would come no closer as the Knights took control down the stretch en route to a 70-60 victory.

Verkaik led the Knights with 16 points and seven rebounds. Engelhard added 15 points while Acre had 13 points on 4-for-6 shooting to go with five boards.

"Ohio Wesleyan really played their tails off. They did a nice job with their press on defense and caused a lot of fits for us," said head coach John Ross. "Fortunately we had a nice run at the end of the first half and also midway through the second half and a lot of our key players stepped up. Ohio Wesleyan gave us everything they had and we had to play down to the wire, so you have to give them a lot of credit for the effort they had tonight."

The Knights, now 2-1, will play host Baldwin-Wallace tomorrow in the championship game at 4 p.m.