Jeff Weseloh (SBU Sports Information) St. Charles, Mo. – The Southwest Baptist University women’s basketball team fell on a shot in the final seconds at Lindenwood 70-68. With the loss SBU drops to 11-6 (3-5 MIAA) on the season.
Scoring was slow to open up the contest against the Bearcats and Lady Lions, and a Megan Rosenbohm layup gave SBU a 3-2 lead with 6:13 remaining. The Bearcats added another layup from Rosenbohm and a layup from Alex Botkin to take a 7-2 lead with 4:44 to go in the first quarter. Lindenwood answered with a 6-0 run of their own, re-taking the lead, but a Natalie O’Keefe layup with 2:08 to go in the quarter gave SBU the lead back at 9-8. SBU and LWU exchanged buckets over the final two minutes of the quarter, as SBU went into the second quarter trailing 15-12.
Lindenwood opened up the second quarter with an 8-2 run to push their lead to a game high 9 at 23-14 with 7:24 remaining in the half. The Bearcats answered with a 5-0 run from Caylee Richardson to cut the deficit to 23-19 before the Lady Lions once again pushed their lead back to 9 with 4:30 remaining in the half. A Rosenbohm three would cut the deficit to four at 30-26, but the Bearcats would end up going into the half trailing 34-27.
SBU opened up the second half with a 6-2 run to cut the deficit back to three at 36-33 with 7:06 left in the quarter. Lindenwood once again pushed their lead back to seven, but a jumper from Rosenbohm followed by a three from Laura Vierkant cut the Lady Lions lead back to two at 44-42 with 3:16 left in the quarter. A Vierkant jumper was the final bucket on the third quarter as SBU went into the final frame trailing 49-45.
In the fourth quarter the Bearcats were able to cut the deficit down to one (51-50) after back-to-back jumpers from Rosenbohm and Morgan Henderson, but the Lady Lions answered back with three straight buckets to extend their lead back to seven at 57-50 with 5:47 remaining. SBU once again cut into the Lindenwood lead, with layups from Botkin and Rosenbohm, to trail 63-61 with 3:01 to go. However, Lindenwood again pushed their lead back to six with 1:16 remaining. A Rosenbohm layup cut the deficit to four, and a Henderson three cut the deficit to one as the Bearcats trailed 67-66 with 50 seconds remaining. Lindenwood went one of two from the line, and a layup from Rosenbohm with five seconds remaining tied the game at 68-68. However, Lindenwood would connect on a layup with three seconds left as a three at the buzzer wouldn’t fall for the Bearcats as SBU fell 70-68.
Megan Rosenbohm had a game high 25 points to lead the Bearcats offensively. Caylee Richardson pulled down a team high 8 rebounds, while Alex Botkin picked up 4 steals in the loss. As a team SBU shot 44.4% from the field, 29.4% from beyond the arc, and 58.3% from the line.
The Bearcats will return to action on Saturday, January 21 when they travel to Lincoln. Tip-off is set for 1:30 p.m. from Jefferson City, Missouri.
