MARS HILL, N.C. - The Newberry Wolves came back from a cold-shooting first half to briefly take a lead midway through the second half, but a fierce charge late in the game fell short in a 61-58 loss to the Mars Hill Lions at Stanford Arena on Wednesday night.
With the loss, Newberry falls to 14-5 overall and 6-3 in the South Atlantic Conference, while Mars Hill is now 4-13 overall and 1-8 in the league. Newberry plays at Lenoir-Rhyne (12-5, 7-2 SAC) at 4 p.m. Saturday in Hickory, N.C.
Samantha Creed (Montmorency, Victoria, Australia) led all scorers with 22 points, six rebounds and four assists. Haylee Lepaio (Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia) scored 13 points with seven rebounds and Tasia Holdorf (Anchorage, Alaska) scored 11 points.
Poor shooting and turnovers in the first half did not help the Wolves, as they fell behind 29-20 at the halftime break. Newberry shot only 7-of-29 (24.1%) from the field in the first 20 minutes. The Wolves never led in the half and were within striking distance early, only trailing 11-10 with 12:51 left in the half on a Zara Pearson (Echuca, Victoria, Australia) three-pointer.
The lead was still at only one point with 10 minutes to play in the opening period when the Lions went on a 7-0 run to push the lead to 23-15 with 6:38 to play in the half. MHC's Erica Warren made a layup with 1:22 left and neither team could score before the break with MHC up 29-20.
Ansley Ricker scored on an early jumper in the second half for Mars Hill for a double-digit lead for the first time on the night before a Newberry surge. After trailing 35-25 with 16:39 to play, the Wolves went on a 12-2 run with a pair of Creed three-pointers assisting. Lepaio's layup with 13:07 on the clock gave the Wolves their first lead of the game at 37-36.
Newberry led 44-43 with just under 11 minutes to go when the hosts responded with a run of their own, getting out to a 57-47 lead with 5:50 to play on a Warren layup. Creed then went on a personal 9-0 run with a fast break layup, a three-pointer, a pair of free throws and a steal followed by a layup with just under 2:00 left to cut the lead to 57-56.
After Ricker made a jumper to push the MHC lead to three, Creed made a layup and was fouled, but could not convert the free throw, keeping MHC up by one. After the Wolves were forced to foul, the Lions missed the front end of the one-and-one to give Newberry another chance, but Creed was called for traveling just before another fastbreak shot. Newberry was forced to foul again with MHC making both free throws to extend the lead to three points.
The Wolves had just over five seconds to drive the length of the court and score, but the potential game-tying shot was not taken in time, giving the Lions the win.
Newberry improved to 50.0% (15-of-30) shooting in the second half, but their full game total stayed down at 37.3% (22-of-59). Mars Hill shot 52.2% (12-of-23) in the second half and 43.4% (23-of-53) in the game.
