A large, festive crowd turned out Saturday afternoon to celebrate the three graduating seniors for the Charger women's basketball team. Unfortunately for the home team, its great effort came up just short in a matchup with Malone University.
The Pioneers came up with key shots at important times to manage an 82-76 win over Hillsdale at the Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. Hillsdale is now 5-16 overall and 2-10 in conference play.
Sydney Anderson, Amaka Chikwe and Julia Wacker were all recognized in a pre-game ceremony, joined by their family members, on a day where they played their final home weekend game of their careers. Those three, with their young teammates, once again gave great effort and played hard through all 40 minutes against a talented and confident opponent, but couldn't quite get over the top.
These two teams played a high scoring game just a week ago, and this game was very similar, with Malone's quick guards draining 3-pointers by the bundle. As a team, Malone was 14-for-35 from beyond the arc, enjoying a 42-21 scoring edge on those types of shots over the Chargers.
Hillsdale had plenty to counter with, thanks to five players scoring 8 or more points, led by 20 from sophomore guard Grace Touchette. Sophomore Lauren Daffenberg scored 17 points while Anderson had 10 with 5 rebounds. Wacker and Jaycie Burger each scored 8, and Sydney Mills grabbed 6 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench.
The Pioneers got out to an 8-point lead at the end of the first quarter and made it stick. The teams played evenly over the final 30 minutes, but every time Hillsdale would get within four or five points, Malone had an answer.
Wacker had 10 rebounds, her third straight game of double-digit boards for Hillsdale.
PHOTO: MaryKate Drews