PAXTON, Mass. – The Lasell College women's basketball team led Anna Maria College after each of the first three quarters Tuesday evening but the Amcats outscored the Lasers 22-9 in the fourth quarter to pull out a 58-54 victory in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) game at the Fuller Center.
Senior Morgan Church (New London, N.H.) led the Lasers in the setback with 17 points and five assists. Junior Jaime Caron (Derry, N.H.) and freshman Meghan Carroll (Douglas, Mass.) added eight points apiece and senior Brianna Hoffman (Milford, N.H.) chipped in with seven points as the Lasers dropped to 3-11 overall and 1-6 in the GNAC.
The home team scored the last nine points of the game to snap an 11-game losing streak and pick up its first conference win of the season (2-15 overall, 1-7 GNAC). Graduate student Johanna Burke (Oxford, Mass.) scored a team-high 13 points off the Anna Maria bench and sophomore Hailey Moore (Worcester, Mass.) added 12 points and 14 rebounds in a winning effort for the Amcats.
The lead see-sawed in the first quarter before Carroll made a basket for Lasell with five seconds to go in the period to give the visitors a 16-14 lead after one. The Lasers pushed their lead to seven points (23-16) after a Church three-pointer early in the second stanza, and Carroll's basket just past the midway point of the frame put Lasell up 27-21.
Neither team was able to score over the next two minutes until Church sank a pair of free throws to push the margin to eight points (29-21) with 2:39 to play. Anna Maria outscored Lasell 4-0 the rest of the quarter to make it a 29-25 score at the intermission.
The Lasers maintained their lead in the third quarter and led by nine (45-36) with 1:45 to go after four straight points by junior Liz Bougie (Sanford, Maine), and that ended up as the score at the end of the third quarter.
Anna Maria chipped away at the deficit in the fourth quarter, but Lasell held on to a five-point lead (54-49) with 3:56 remaining. The Lasers went cold and did not score another point the rest of the way, going 0-for-8 from the floor with three turnovers. Anna Maria tied the game at 54-all on a pair of free throws with 38 seconds remaining, and pulled out the win with four more free throws in the final 31 seconds.
Lasell will look to bounce back Thursday at home with a 7:00 p.m. GNAC match-up against Regis College, while Anna Maria visits Albertus Magnus College Thursday at the same time.
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