Bobcats Falter in Final Minutes in First Loss of Season

Saturday, November 24

Dallas, TX

7 p.m.

Montana State University

Southern Methodist University

Photo by: R. Dean Hendrickson

11/24/2012 11:51:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

The Montana State women’s basketball team suffered its first loss of the season after giving up a 10-point lead in the final two-and-a-half minutes as Southern Methodist rallied for a 71-70 victory, Saturday night in the championship game of its own Hoops for a Cure tournament.

By: Tom Schulz

BOXSCORE/PLAY-BY-PLAY: SMU 71, MONTANA STATE 70 (pdf)

The Montana State women's basketball team suffered its first loss of the season after giving up a 10-point lead in the final two-and-a-half minutes as Southern Methodist rallied for a 71-70 victory, Saturday night in the championship game of its own Hoops for a Cure tournament.

Bobcat sophomore Kalli Durham converted a layup off an offensive rebound to put Montana State (3-1) up 70-60 with 2:27 left in the game. It would be MSU's last points as the Mustangs forced four Bobcat turnovers and parlayed them into seven points to close to within 70-69 with 38-seconds left. Following MSU's fifth turnover, SMU's Alisha Fillmore connected on two free throw tosses with eight-seconds remaining. Ashley Brumwell's three-point attempt at the buzzer went awry giving the Mustangs its fifth win of the season.

“We gave up too many offensive rebounds, free throws and turnovers and that was the story of the game,” said MSU head coach Tricia Binford. “We gave them 26 points from the line, 24 second chance opportunities and our execution in the final two minutes was very disappointing.”

For the game, MSU shot 47 percent from the field, but converted just two-of-17 attempts from three-point range. The Bobcats connected on 10-of-14 from the free throw line and committed 19 turnovers.

SMU (5-1) shot just 32 percent from the field, but connected on 26-of-36 from the free throw line.

Senior Rachel Semansky paced the Bobcats with 23 points, including converting 10-of-14 from the field. The Highwood native also added a team-best nine rebounds and had four assists. Also in double-figures for MSU were Brumwell and Durham with 14 and 11 points, respectively. Brumwell, a junior from Hamilton, also posted six rebounds, five assists, three blocks and three steals.

Fillmore guided SMU with 20 points, including a 10-of-13 effort from the line.

For her efforts, Semansky garnered all-tournament honors.

MSU will open its regular-season home slate on Thursday night when it hosts UM-Western at 5:30 p.m. in Worthington Arena.