NOTRE DAME, IND - The Kalamazoo College women's basketball team won 71-70 in overtime over Saint Mary's (Ind.) on Saturday afternoon. The win is the women's fifth in a row and moves their overall record to 14 and 7 and their conference record to 9-4.
In a game where neither team trailed by more than eight points, it seemed inevitable it'd come down to which team could make a couple plays at the end, and it was the Hornets who made those plays.
Kalamazoo went into the second half trailing by three points, and saw that lead grow to eight with ten minutes left in the ball game. Even worse than that, they trailed by seven with 54 second left to go. That's when the big plays happened, by none other than their seniors. Hannah Maness was fouled shooting a three with 54 seconds left to go and sank all three of her free throws. One second after the third free throw Querubin Dubois stole the ball and it resulted in a layup for Perri Nicholson. Just like that the Belles' lead was down from seven to two. After Grace Smith traded some free throws with a Saint Mary's player after another Belle had missed a free throw, the Hornets trailed by three with seven seconds to go. Then a Belle player committed made another bad mistake and fouled another Hornet captain shooting a three with 0.3 seconds left on the clock – Emily Lindsay.
Lindsay made all three from the charity stripe to send the game into overtime and the Hornets were given new life. In overtime Kelsey Adamski hit a pair of free throws with 51 seconds left to tie the game 70-70, then on the next defensive possession came up with a steal that resulted in a trip to the free-throw line for Querubin Dubois with twenty seconds left. Dubois hit 1-of-2 and for the last 20 seconds Kalamazoo clung to its one point lead and walked out of the visiting gym with the slim, hard fought victory.
Emily Lindsay led all scorers with 16 points; she also had four rebounds and was 4-of-10 from three point land. Grace Smith and Perri Nicholson each had 11 points, while Smith led all rebounders with nine. Kelsey Adamski stuffed the stat sheet again with 14 points, eight rebounds, four assists, and most importantly six steals. Querubin Dubois made a lot of plays off the bench, but none bigger than her steal at the end of regulation and that final free throw. She finished with nine points.
The team won't have much time to celebrate the victory as it will take on Hope with serious conference tournament implications on the line Wednesday, Feb. 11 at home.