Suffering through a cold shooting night, the Hillsdale College women's basketball team saw its winning streak halted at three with an 83-68 loss to nationally ranked Cedarville University on a snowy Wednesday night at the Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena.
Hillsdale is now 5-4 overall and 3-2 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, while the 22nd-ranked Yellow Jackets moved to 8-1 with the win.
Although the Chargers' hitting percentage gradually got better throughout the game, it started low. Hillsdale found itself trailing by 11 points at the end of the first quarter after making just four of its first 22 shots. The team's shot selection wasn;t necessarily poor, but shots simply weren't falling, and the Chargers were playing from behind the whole night.
The team did come up with one impressive surge in the third quarter. Cedarville opened the third quarter with five quick points, increasing its halftime lead from 16 to 21 in a flash. But a 3-pointer by senior Maddy Reed capped a 23-9 run that saw the team gain some offensive momentum. The Yellow Jackets' lead melted from 21 to 7 points, with Hillsdale finding itself, remarkably, down just 50-43. Keying that third-quarter run was a 7-0 advantage on points off turnovers by Hillsdale.
But Cedarville showed the kind of chops that has it in the national rankings, immediately answering Hillsdale's run with nine straight points of its own to regain a double digit lead, one it would never lose.
Junior forward Makenna Ott played another solid all-around offensive game with a team-high 19 points. She made eight of her nine free throws and added 5 rebounds and a blocked shot to her stat line.
Junior guard Allie Dewire had 15 points and 3 assists while shooting 50 percent from the floor. Michele Boykin and Sydney Anderson each scored 6 points off the bench, and Reed contributed 7 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists for the Chargers.