Women's basketball concludes home schedule with defeat

DEFIANCE, Ohio – With senior day festivities preceding the action, a busy afternoon in the Karl H. Weaner Center began with the Defiance College women's basketball team taking on Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. An afternoon of offensive struggles saw the Fightin' Engineers prevail 46-40. 

Defiance drops to 7-16 overall and 6-10 in the HCAC while Rose-Hulman now stands at 6-17 overall with a 5-11 conference record.

After an early back-and-forth, the Fightin' Engineers landed on top at the end of the first quarter with a narrow 15-14 advantage. A low scoring second quarter saw the visitors pull away as DC struggled to find an offensive breakthrough.

Despite a Liz Martin (Bellefontaine/Bellefontaine) three bringing the score to within four, 36-32, early in the fourth quarter, the visitors did not relinquish the lead for the remainder of the contest.

The Yellow Jackets shot 30.4 percent (14 of 46) from the field on the afternoon, narrowly edged by Rose with a 31.5 percent mark. DC knocked down seven triples while finishing with a 41.7 percent (5 of 12) mark from the charity stripe.

Briana Townley (Paulding/Paulding) led the Purple and Gold offense with 11 points in the contest. The freshman also chipped in four rebounds and a block in her 20 minutes of play. Martin wrapped up her career in the Weaner Center with nine points, all of which came from beyond the arc.

With two games remaining in the 2019-20 regular season, DC currently sits sixth in league standings, with a handful of Saturday's results yet to be determined.

"You earn your way into the playoffs," said Head Coach Allan King Jr. "We have two games left to get it corrected and do just that."

Defiance will return to action on Wednesday as they visit Bluffton University. Action will begin at 6:00 p.m. as the women's contest precedes the men's game at 8:00 p.m.