Lady Roaring Lions' second-half comeback falls short

November 15, 2013

HARRISONBURG, Va. – A strong second half rally against Lancaster Bible College fell just short, after the Lady Roaring Lions cut a 16-point deficit to four before falling to the Lady Chargers 68-61 in the season opener played at Eastern Mennonite University.

Freshman Courtney Haines (McCellandtown, Pa.) made a strong debut for Fayette, dropping a team-high 21 points. Junior Caitlin Wontroba (Uniontown, Pa.) added 13 to go along with five assists and three steals.

Sophomore Tara Neely (Morgantown, W.Va.) added 10, while freshman Kaitlin Miller pulled down 10 rebounds and added two blocks.

Shannon Flament (Charleroi, Pa.) came off of the bench to score nine while grabbing eight rebounds.

The Lady Roaring Lions (0-1, 0-0)started slow, shooting just 24 percent from the field in the first half, including a difficult 1-15 from beyond the three-point arc.

Shanice Smith's jumper at 16:19 gave the Lady Chargers (1-0) the lead for good and Aubrey Folger's free throw with began a 26-7 run over the final 10 minutes of the first half to give Lancaster Bible a 36-19 lead at the  break.

The Lady Roaring Lions rattled off the first nine points of the second half on a pair of free throws, a layup and a jumper from Haines and layups from Miller and Flament to close to 38-29. The Lady Chargers came storming back and Brooklyn Wilson's jumper at 7:29 gave the Lady Chargers a seemingly safe 13-point lead.

Haines buried a three 30 seconds later to ignite a 16-9 run over the next seven minutes that featured seven points from Wontroba and closed the gap to 65-61 with 18 seconds left. The Lady Chargers then hit three consecutive free throws to seal the win.