Lady Splitters Outgunned By Lenoir-Rhyne In Overtime 

HARROGATE, TN – It took overtime to do it, but the Lady Bears of Lenoir-Rhyne College knocked off the Lady Railsplitters of Lincoln Memorial Wednesday night in South Atlantic Conference basketball action by the final score of 61-53. (Box score)

Although neither team was fighting for one of the top spots in the conference race, the game was nonetheless important in terms with more then half of the conference schedule still to be play.

Lenoir-Rhyne led most of the first half and took a 28-24 lead into the intermission.  By the time the second half was nearly over, the lead had been tied or changed hands numerous time as look as though it would go down to the wire.  As fate would have it, that is just what happened.

With 29 seconds remaining in regulation, Lincoln Memorial’s Madeline Richards (Floyds Knobs, IN) hit a jumper to tie the game at 51 all.  The basket proved to be the last by either team in regulation and the game eventually went into overtime.

When overtime got underway, it was soon clear that all of the damage would be done by Lenoir-Rhyne.  The Lady Bears scored the first four points of overtime before LMU’s Heather Benton (Wooton, KY) finally got the Lady Railsplitters first bucket of the extra period with only 2:56 remaining.  The basket also turned out to be LMU’s last, as LRC 6-0 run over the final 2:56 to come away with the 61-53 win.

The loss drops the Lady Railsplitters to 8-8 overall and 1-5 in South Atlantic Conference play heading into this weekend’s game with Catawba College.  Catawba on the other hand will enter the Tex Turner Arena standing at 14-3 overall and holding a record of 4-1 in league play, good enough for second place.  Tip-off for Saturday’s game is set for 6:00 p.m.