By Roger Ingles
On February 22, 2014, two basketball games occurred in Branch Rickey Arena. The first was the greatest win in Ohio Wesleyan women’s basketball history as they defeated the DePauw Tigers 65-64.
DePauw is the current defending national champions and was the consensus No. 1 ranked team in the nation who came into Branch Rickey with a 58-game winning streak, and with 47 consecutive NCAC wins.
The win secured the Battling Bishops as the number two seed in the upcoming NCAC tournament, our highest finish in many years. It was a tremendous achievement by head coach Stacey Lobdell and her squad.
The Tigers have been the dominant team in not only the NCAC but nationally in Division III women’s basketball. This win showed the dramatic growth our program has made in the past three years and showcased the hard work and dedication these young women have made to get to this level of performance.
The game received attention from several national media outlets and brought a spotlight to our program that was well deserved. The Transcript chose to ignore it. That is a shame. These young women deserved more.
The second event was the OWU men’s team lost on a last-second shot versus DePauw’s men’s team 64-63. It was a great basketball game and the loss caused our team to finish in a three-way tie for second with DePauw and Wittenberg.
This game was meaningful in that it established the final seeding for the NCAC tournament and in its own right, was deserving of a spot in The Transcript.
The picture was great but in no way should ever have been featured over the incredible story of the women’s game.
Your paper chose to highlight the men’s loss with an above-fold front page photo showing the DePauw men’s celebration and chose to ignore the greatest win in OWU women’s history all together. Not even a score of the game was mentioned in your paper about that game.
I find this highly irresponsible and the type of gender discrimination that should make every female athlete on this campus upset.
I am very proud of this team and their accomplishments. Hopefully The Transcript someday will be too.