The Lancaster Bible College women's basketball team fell short on the road against conference rival SUNY Morrisville, losing by a score of 53-43 on Friday night. The Chargers drop to 11-8 overall and 6-5 in United East play, while the Mustangs improve to 13-7 overall and 9-2 in conference action.

How it Happened: The Mustangs scored the first four points of the game before senior Adalyn Steiner drained a 3-pointer to pull the Chargers within one. Neither team could find an offensive rhythm early on, with the score being 7-3 for about four minutes before Morrisville hit a 3-ball to grab a seven-point lead. The Chargers powered back after Mikayla Via knocked down a 3-pointer off a dish from Alaysha Iwais, then Iwais hit a jumper to pull the Chargers within two. On the next trip down the floor, Sydney Heller hit her first 3-point basket of the contest to give LBC their first lead, 11-10. The Mustangs scored once more in the final minute to end the first quarter with a 12-11 lead.
 
After Taylor Colone-Microni scored off an LBC turnover, Steiner drove for a layup as the shot clock ran down and hit a jumper the next time down to keep LBC within one. Morrisville then used a pair of free throws and a 3-point make to pull ahead by six before junior Jenna Dombach drove for a layup to cut the deficit to 17-21. With four minutes left in the half, Iwais connected on a 3-pointer to pull the Chargers within one, but a pair of free throws from the home team bumped the score back to three. Morrisville proceeded to hit a pair of 3-pointers over the next few minutes, and they took a 29-20 lead into halftime.
 
The Mustangs quickly extended the lead to double digits in the third quarter before Irene Were made putback layups on back-to-back possessions to cut the lead to seven. Shelby Gard then found Heller for a 3-pointer, and Heller drew a foul on the next possession and went 2-3 from the line to bring LBC within six. Dombach drove and found Faith Hammond for a jumper, then Morrisville finished out the quarter with a quick score to end the period with a 37-31 advantage over Lancaster.
 
The Chargers were scoreless for the first 2:30 of the fourth frame until Hammond and Dombach hit back-to-back shots to bring the deficit to just four. Steiner then found Dombach and Via for 3-pointers to cut the score to 41-42 with 4 1/2 minutes to go. The Mustangs quickly lengthened the gap to six again, but a jumper from Gard cut it back to four. Some costly turnovers cost Lancaster down the stretch, with Morrisville hitting some key free throws to cause the Chargers to drop the contest 43-53.

By the Numbers

• The Chargers shot 27.4% (17-62) from the field and 23.3% (7-30) from 3-point range, going 2-3 from the free throw line.
• The Mustangs shot 31.1% (19-61) for the game and 16.7% (5-30) on 3-pointers, shooting 76.9% (10-13) from the charity stripe.
• Lancaster Bible won the rebounding battle, 47-39 and had more bench points (14-6), while SUNY Morrisville led in assists (14-10) and points in the paint (26-10)
• Sydney Heller had a team-high eight points with a pair of 3-pointers.
• Jenna Dombach and Adalyn Steiner each had seven points and nine rebounds.
• The Mustangs were led by Cara Walker who had 22 points and 16 rebounds.

Information to Know: The Chargers and Mustangs are now tied in the all-time series, each winning eight games against the other. Morrisville won both matchups this season, with the first coming in a 58-41 win over LBC at the Horst Athletic Center on January 20. Lancaster Bible falls to 6-6 on the road this season and has lost back-to-back games three times this season. The Chargers are winless this season when scoring less than 50 points. On a positive note, with her three assists tonight, Alaysha Iwais moves into 7^th all-time in program history with 238 career assists and leads the United East this season in assists with 91. Iwais also hit her 50^th career 3-point FG in the second quarter. Sydney Heller reached 100 career rebounds tonight with five, now with 101 boards.

Up Next: The women's basketball team will complete their New York road trip tomorrow as they visit Wells College for another United East contest at 1:00 p.m.