WINONA LAKE, IN – The Cougars had a chance at the end but could not find the answer to pass Grace on the scoreboard and fell to the Lancers 65-61 on the Campus of Grace College.

A trio of Lady Cougars put up a balanced attack with Carlie Newman and Kylie Townsley both scoring 16 points and Jessica Garrison scoring 15 points.  But Spring Arbor only had three other players put their names in the books, including Rachel Driesenga (5), Karly Bender (5), and Jessica Mabry (4) and that was the total of SAU's scoring output.

Spring Arbor led by as many as nine points in the first half when they were leading 33-24 with 6:24 on the clock and by the break the Cougars held a 40-35 advantage with 20 minutes to play.

It took Grace eight and a half minutes of the second stanza to take the lead away from the Cougars when the Lancer's Allison Kaufman hit a field goal to make the score 51-10 with 11:24 to go.

Grace increased their lead to seven points (63-56) with 3:53 on the clock and SAU's Garrison hit her fifth 3-pointer of the day to cut Grace's lead to four points (63-59) with 1:52 left in the game.

Karly Bender scored in the paint to cut even deeper into the Lancer's lead to just now two points and trailing 61-63 with only nine seconds left.

Bender quickly fouled Kauffman to send her to the line with seven seconds left in hopes for a miss on the free throw line, but Kauffman made both free throws and SAU couldn't find the basket with less than three seconds left.  The clock ran out on the Cougars with the score 65-61.

Garrison hit five of seven from outside 3-point range including her first four shots of the night and Rachel Driesenga hauled in a team high 10 rebounds to go along with her five points.

Spring Arbor falls to 10-14 and 4-9 and a tie for seventh place in the Crossroads League standings and will finish the week at home against Taylor University.  Taylor defeated Spring Arbor 61-50 the first time around.  Game time is set for 1:00 on Saturday on Bockwitz Court.