Freshman guard Bree Porter had missed the last two games due to illness. Thursday night, she more than made up for her absence.
Porter hit two hue 3-pointers, including the game-winner with 1.9 seconds to go, to lift the Hillsdale College women's basketball team to a 67-65 win over Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio.
This critical win moves Hillsdale to 12-8 overall and 6-7 in the GLIAC, while the Storm fell to 5-8 in conference play.
Porter scored a career-high 9 points in the game, with six of them coming on those two big shots in the fourth quarter. The first three she hit gave Hillsdale its first lead of the game, 55-54, early in the fourth quarter. She finished the game 3-for-4 from behind the 3-point arc, helping her team to its first conference road win of the season.
Lake Erie jumped ahead 7-0 and led by as many as 11 points in the second quarter, thanks to the shooting of the GLIAC's leading scorer Kayla Gabor. The Storm led 41-37 at halftime behind Gabor's 17 points in the game's first 20 minutes,
However, Hillsdale made some smart adjustments on Gabor in the second half, limiting her to just two points on 1-for-5 shooting in the second half. With Lake Erie's scoring ace contained, Hillsdale slowly worked its way back into the game, relaying on several different players in doing so.
Another area where Hillsdale improved its play was in its pressure defense. The Storm didn't commit a single turnover in the game's first 17 minutes. But over the final 23 minutes, the Chargers forced Lake Erie to cough up the ball 10 times, a key development that got the Storm out of its natural offensive flow.
Sophomore Brittany Gray scored 12 of her career-high 14 points in the first half, keeping the Chargers from digging too deep a hole in the half. Gray heated up in the second quarter, pulling Hillsdale out of its slow start.
Junior center Allie Ditter was a consistent force the entire game, leading Hillsdale with 16 points and 11 rebounds in the victory. Dittmer led a team rebounding effort that saw the Chargers hold a commanding 51-30 edge on the boards.
Sophomore Allie Dewire had 10 points, nine rebounds and five assists, and dished the pass to Porter for the game-winning shot. Freshman center Julia Wacker had a six-point outburst in the second half that also played a key role in Hillsdale's comeback.
UP NEXT: Hillsdale returns home to face Ohio Dominican at 1 p.m. Saturday.