COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Ursinus College women's basketball team ended up on the short end of a seesaw second against Gettysburg this evening, as the visitors squandered a 12-point lead before taking control early in the fourth quarter and staving off the Bears for a 61-54 Centennial Conference victory. Senior forward Jessica Porada led all scorers with 23 points and secured nine rebounds for Ursinus, which suffered its second straight league loss.
Sophomore guard Rachel Guy made all but one of her six field-goal attempts to finish with 13 points for Ursinus (7-7, 6-2), which turned the tide on a potential runaway for Gettysburg (9-3, 4-3) with a big run in the third quarter. But the Bears went just 2 for 15 in the final frame, while the Bullets connected on 7 of 11 shots to storm ahead and snap an 11-game winning streak for the home team in the series. It marked the first time that the visiting team prevailed since 2009.
Ursinus was 2 for 17 from the floor in the second quarter, scoring only four points in the frame to allow the Bullets to head into halftime with a 27-20 advantage. Gettysburg continued to surge after the intermission, hitting four of its first five shots to storm out to a 35-23 lead. But junior guard Libby Lannon ignited a huge run to close the third, driving the left side of the lane for a conventional three-point play.
The Bullets answered back with a jumper by Annie Reilly, but two foul shots by Porada keyed a 16-3 spurt to cap the period. The Bears held Gettysburg to a single field goal over the final 6:41 of the quarter, simultaneously finding a rhythm on offense to turn the game on its head. A jumper by senior forward Caroline Shimrock and a corner 3-pointer out of the hands of Guy cut it to 38-33, and Guy hit a lay-up and a triple on consecutive possessions to pull Ursinus even at 40. Porada's bucket with 1:56 left in the stanza sent the Bears into the home stretch clinging to a two-point edge.
That was as good as it got for the Red and Gold. Gettysburg opened the fourth quarter on a 10-0 run, holding Ursinus off the scoreboard for almost five minutes. Two free throws from Porada made it 51-46 with 4:35 left, but a three-point play by Kim Ryan quelled the uprising and allowed the Orange and Blue to hold on.
Jessica Porter collected a double-double with 21 points and 10 rebounds for the Bullets, while Emily Gibbons hit for 22 points and eight boards. Porter reached the 1,000-point mark for her career with two second-quarter free throws.
Senior guard Alyssa Polimeni finished with nine points and handed out five assists, including the 300th of her career, for the Bears, becoming just the fourth player in program history to reach that milestone. Senior forward Elana Roadcloud gobbled up 13 rebounds, hitting that mark for the fourth time in five outings.
The top 3-point shooting team in the CC, Gettysburg was just 1 of 10 from distance, but still finished at a 48.8-percent clip for the game (24 of 50). Ursinus, meanwhile, was held to just 28.8 percent (19 of 66).
Shimrock played the role of spark plug in the first quarter, orchestrating an 8-0 Ursinus run after the Bullets had seized an early 9-4 lead. Shimrock assisted on three of the Bear baskets during that stretch.
After taking a 16-12 lead in the first, Ursinus went cold for the rest of the half. The Bears scored only four points over the final 11:44 of the stanza , and despite a solid defensive effort the home side still went into the locker room trailing by seven. Porter scored 10 first-half points for Gettysburg, including the free throws at the 3:42 mark of the second quarter that gave her an even 1,000.
The women's basketball team will take a trip down to Baltimore for a date with Johns Hopkins on Saturday.