BOX SCORE
LISLE, Ill. – The No. 4 seed Benedictine University women's basketball team used a 31-27 halftime lead to help them defeat the No. 5 seed Edgewood College 62-58 in the quarterfinals of the Northern Athletics Conference Tournament on Tuesday night in the Dan and Ada Rice Center.
Edgewood (14-12, 12-6 went on a 5-0 run to begin the game but Benedictine (16-9, 11-6) quickly stormed back to take a four-point lead after jumpers from
Sam Hathaway and
Brittany Armato.
Edgewood would tie the game with eight minutes remaining and neither team would score for the next three minutes until EC's Brittany Bylsma hit two free throw shots to take the lead. Edgewood would hold on to that lead for the next four minutes until a layup and a three-pointer from Walsh gave BenU the 31-27 lead at the half.
Both teams were 11-for-27 from the floor in the first half but BenU had an extra three-pointer and made six free-throws compared to Edgewood's three.
Benedictine came out strong in the second half, going up by as many as nine with a three-pointer and layup from
Michelle Gaede with just under 13 minutes remaining. Edgewood slowly chopped at the BenU lead, cutting it to three with three minutes left.
A three-pointer from
Karyn Conerty would regain BenU's six-point lead but a free throw and a jumper from Edgewood cut it back to three. Edgewood's solid defense stopped the BenU offensive attack and made two free-throws to come within one with just 21 seconds left in the game.
After being fouled on the other end,
Lidia Arias made a free-throw to give BenU a two-point lead. Edgewood's offense could not score, turning over the ball with just five seconds left and
Colleen Forkin hit her final two free-throws to secure BenU's 62-58 win.
Benedictine had three players score in double-figures including Forkin and Walsh who scored 12 points apiece and
Jenn Bren who had 11 points and a team high eight rebounds.
As a team, BenU shot 39.0 percent from the floor (23-for-59) and were 11-for-22 from the free-throw line (50 percent) but were out-rebounded by EC, 51-37. Edgewood had 16 turnovers on 11 Benedictine steals.
The women's basketball team travels to Milwaukee, Wis. to take on the No. 1 seed Wisconsin Lutheran College at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 24. For the full NAC Tournament bracket visit
www.northernac.org.
