HIRAM, Ohio – After a back-and-forth affair through three quarters of play, the Allegheny College women's basketball team couldn't hold off Hiram College as the Terriers topped the Gators, 68-62, this evening in North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) action.
Allegheny (8-6, 3-2 NCAC) held a five-point edge after one half of play, but a 21-16 third quarter in favor of Hiram (9-5, 3-2 NCAC) set the stage for the hosts to pick up the victory.
Senior guard
Rachel Vigliotti paced the Gators with 13 points on 4-of-10 shooting. Her classmate
Emma Pellicano added 10 points and four steals as Allegheny shot 34.9 percent (22-63) from the field on the evening.
After topping the single-game program record for blocks in the teams' last meeting, senior forward
Kaitlyn Fromknecht sent away four shots while adding seven points and a game-high 15 rebounds. Fromknecht is now five rejections shy of breaking the Gators' single-season standard of 61, set in 2005-06 by Jennifer Latronica.
Allegheny jumped out to a 7-2 lead as the senior trio of
Jessica Mrdjenovich,
Ifeyinwa Uwazie, and Fromknecht each scored. A 9-0 run swung the momentum in the Terriers' favor, but the Gators responded with a 10-1 stretch to carry a 17-12 advantage into the second quarter. Freshmen
Delaney Arbore and
Candaisy Crawford had eight of the team's 10 points during that run, with junior forward
Morgan Dillon adding the other bucket.
The visitors' lead hovered around four to seven points for half of the second quarter before a Sarah Berger trifecta made it 25-22 Allegheny. Savana Lowery followed that up with a three-pointer of her own to tie the game, but Pellicano answered with a pair of layups. After Lowery cut the deficit to two with a couple of free-throws, freshman forward
Olivia Barkley buried a shot from international waters to set the halftime score at 32-27.
The Gators' biggest lead came with 7:54 remaining in the third quarter as a 6-2 stretch was capped off by a jumper from sophomore guard
Amanda Beebe. Hiram stormed back with a dominant run, outscoring Allegheny 18-3 over a period of 5:19 to pick up a 48-42 advantage. However, the Gators responded with a pair of and-ones by Vigliotti to knot the contest up at 48-all going into the fourth quarter.
Pellicano, Vigliotti, and Beebe all scored to begin the closing frame, giving Allegheny a 55-50 advantage. Fromknecht's layup after two Terrier free-throws kept the difference at five, but six consecutive points by the hosts made it 58-57 in favor of them.
Hiram scored four more points after a Pellicano foul shot to make it 62-58 with 2:16 remaining. Fromknecht answered with another layup on the next possession, but Mercedes Jones scored on the other end and two Lowery free-throws pushed the Terrier edge to six. Vigliotti sank a jump shot nine seconds after the successful foul shots; however, that's as close as the Gators would get.
Allegheny and Hiram each received 24 points from their respective benches, but the Terriers held edges in points off turnovers (22-13) and points in the paint (26-24).
Jones scored a game-high 14 points for Hiram, while Allison Vannoy added 13.
Allegheny will look to rebound at home at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 9 when it hosts Ohio Wesleyan.
