NEWBERRY – A fierce rally late wasn’t enough for the Newberry Wolves women’s basketball team as they dropped their first South Atlantic Conference game to Anderson on Saturday afternoon, 64-59.

The Wolves were paced by senior forward Haylee Lepaio (Bathurst, NSW, Australia) and junior guard Emily Perry (Nambour, Qld, Australia). Lepaio had 14 points, nine rebounds and four steals while Perry also had 14 points to go along with six rebounds.

The Wolves got out to a good start and took a 14-5 lead to start the game with 13:39 left in the first half thanks to a pair of baskets by Lepaio and a 3-pointer by senior guard Zara Pearson (Echucha, Vic, Australia) to start it. Anderson countered with a 12-5 run to make it 19-17 with 7:15 left.

The Trojans would eventually steal the lead on a Sierra Simpson jumper to make it 23-21. That basket put the Wolves down for good as they were never able to regain the lead in the contest and Anderson took a 31-27 lead into halftime.

The game stayed tonight though the Trojans pushed their lead to 11 twice during the second half but the Wolves weren’t ready to give up yet. The Wolves embarked on a 7-2 run to pull to 54-52 on a pair of Samantha Creed (Montmorency, Vic, Australia) with 2:40 left in the game.

Newberry trailed 57-52 but a personal 5-0 run by Perry was capped off by a fast break layup that tied the game 57-57 with 1:03 to go. Anderson got their last seven points off of free throws, going 7-8, while only Creed was able to get a shot to fall to push it to the final 64-59 margin.

The Wolves struggled shooting the ball from behind the arc as they only shot 25 percent, going 5-20, and were outrebounded 47-36. The Wolves did have a season-high five blocks on the defensive end of the floor.

The Wolves will be back in action in a week as they play Francis Marion in a nonconference home game at 6 p.m. on Dec. 13^th.