After dropping their first game of the season, the Slippery Rock women’s basketball team lost their second game to Lincoln University (1-1) on Saturday 78-72 in game two of The Rock’s trip to Richmond, Va for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) CIAA Challenge.
Despite the loss, sophomore guard Brooke Hinderliter returned to normal form after a sluggish four-point outing on Friday as she racked up a team-leading 18 points, eight rebounds, and a steal while shooting seven of 13 from the field. Redshirt junior guard Ciara Patterson was able to total 15 points on the evening off of five buckets from three-point land making her just the third Rock player in the past four seasons to do so.
Patterson’s three pointers accounted for half of the Green and White’s three-point makes on the day while the team shot 41 percent from the field (23 of 56). Although The Rock was able to hold Lincoln to 38 percent from the field, many Rock fouls lead to 41 Lion free throw attempts, 27 of which were successful.
The Rock was able to find success early as they jumped out to a five-point lead, but Lincoln kept pace as SRU was able to take a three-point lead into the second quarter at 21-18. A strong Lions attack commenced in the second as they were able to hold The Rock to 13 points and score 21 of their own to take a 39-34 lead into halftime.
No team seemed to gain full control in the third, but the Green and White was able to score eight straight points in the beginning of the fourth quarter to give SRU a one-point lead at 58 points with just over eight minutes left in regulation.
Free throws for the Lions really started to pile up and come into factor in the final stages of the game as Lincoln was able to edge The Rock in the end as they pulled away for a 78-72 win.
Up next for the Green and White comes a trip to south-west Ohio for some Division I action when they take on the University of Cincinnati (0-1) in an exhibition game on Monday with a 6:00 p.m. tip-off.
