Women's Basketball Shows Grit in Come From Behind Win vs. Cornerstone

(Lansing, MI)-- The Cleary Cougar women's basketball team trailed at the half, but dominated the fourth quarter, as they won over the visiting Cornerstone Golden Eagles 73-69 Saturday afternoon in Lansing.

The game was very back and forth to start, as the score would be tied 8-8 with just over five minutes to play in the quarter.  A Samantha Hoelscher layup would start a 7-0 Cougar run.  Hoelscher would connect from behind the arc, and scored a layup, as she scored all seven points in the run to give the Cougars a 15-8 lead.  Cornerstone would fight back, and took a 20-17 lead, but Samantha Hoelscher would hit her second three pointer of the quarter to tie the game at 20-20 with six seconds to play in the opening quarter.

The second quarter began much like the first, with each team trying to gain a foothold on the other.  With the score tied 25-25, Cornerstone would seem to figure things out first, and took a 32-27 lead.  After another pair of traded baskets, and a Golden Eagle free throw, Cleary trailed 36-29 in the half's closing seconds.  Jess Andrew would get a defensive rebound and pushed the ball forward to take a final second shot, hitting from behind the arc to narrow the gap, and send the Cougars into the half trailing 36-32.

Cleary would come out strong in the third quarter, and took a 39-38 lead within two minutes of action.  Cornerstone responded quickly, regaining the lead, and building a 45-41 advantage of their own.  An Izzy Dugal layup would narrow the gap to two points, but the Golden Eagles would hit from behind the arc to extend their lead to five points.  Cleary would cut the deficit back to one point, but a 4-0 run with 2:16 to play by Cornerstone would make the score 56-51 heading into the final quarter of action.

Cleary would start the fourth quarter on a 9-0 run to take a 60-56 lead through four minutes of game play.  Izzy Dugal scored six of the nine points during that run.  After Cornerstone cut the Cougar lead to one point, Izzy Dugal would score another layup, followed by a pair of Jess Andrew free throws to extend the Cougar lead to five points with 4:00 minutes to play, as the score was 66-61.  Cornerstone would go on 8-2 run to take a 69-68 lead with 1:29 left in the game.  Trailing by one, Makenna Jarratt would hit a three to put the Cougars up two points.  After getting a defensive stop, Cornerstone would foul Izzy Dugal to send the senior to the free thow line with a chance to ice the game.  Dugal would make both free throws to make the score 73-69.  Cleary would get one final stop, and were able to see out the end of the game to earn their third WHAC win of the season.

Samantha Hoelscher led Cleary with 23 points, 14 rebounds, and 4 assists in the game.  Izzy Dugal added 22 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks, while Jess Andrew added 11 points and 8 assists.

Cleary improves to 4-5 overall, 3-2 in the WHAC.  The Cougars will be back in action on Tuesday, December 9, when they play a non-conference game against the Saints of Holy Cross College at Gannon Gymnasium.  The game is set to begin at 5:30 PM.