The Malone University women's basketball team lost an away GLIAC contest at Lake Erie College on Thursday night by the score of 62-58 in overtime in a contest that was extremely close for nearly all of the 45 minutes of play.  It was also a heartbreaking loss as Malone nearly had the contest won in regulation.
 
With the loss, which was the first overtime contest of the season for the squad, the Pioneers' record fell to 8-12 overall and to 6-10 in the GLIAC while the Storm improved to 9-13 overall and to 4-12 in the conference.
 
In the first period, Malone grabbed a 9-6 lead for its largest advantage of the half before the hosts pulled out to a period-high six-point 30-24 edge with 4:46 remaining. From that point, though, the Pioneers rattled off six straight points to tie it at 30-all before the Storm scored one final basket with 51 seconds left to take a 32-30 lead into the intermission.
 
In the second frame, Lake Erie scored the first five points to post its largest lead of the game at 37-30.  Malone would quickly close the gap, though, as the two teams would then trade leads for most of the remainder of the game.  With the score knotted at 55-all, Malone then took its final lead in regulation at 57-55 on a pair of free throw conversions by guard Alahna Singleton with 3:08 remaining.  From that point, no further scoring occurred until just before the final buzzer as Lake Erie scored on a shot that hit paydirt just after an offensive rebound from a Storm three-point attempt.
 
In the overtime, forward Sarah Bardall gave Malone its final lead of the game with 4:30 left as she hit one of two free throw attempts to put the Pioneers up 58-57.  But over the final four-plus minutes, the hosts scored the final five points of the contest, all of which came at the free throw line, to secure their 62-58 victory.
 
The key factors in the Lake Erie win were the 17-4 margin that the Storm registered in steals and the 27-15 advantage in turnovers that Lake Erie held. In addition, despite Malone holding a slight advantage in field goal percentage and a solid 46-36 edge on the boards, the hosts were able to make up for it by tossing up many more shots than the Pioneers by a 67 to 49 count.
 
For Malone, Singleton paced the team in scoring with 12 points while guard Rachel Goddard also reached the double-digit mark with 10 points. Singleton also led the squad in rebounds with 12 while Goddard dished out a team-best four assists. Guard Natalie Nickol was next in the scoring column with eight points while forward Bri Libertore yanked down nine boards to go along with her six points. In addition, guard Leslie Raifsnider also had a solid night on the glass with eight rebounds while also tallying six points.
 
Kayla Gabor led Lake Erie with 15 points while Chloe Irish paced the team in rebounds with 10.
 
Malone will next compete in a home GLIAC contest against Ashland University (16-6, 12-4 GLIAC) on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.  Live stats will be available for this contest.