BOX SCORE
ALLIANCE, Ohio – Homestanding Mount Union earned its only lead of the game on a basket with four seconds left as the Purple Raiders beat Capital, 65-64 in OAC women’s basketball action on Wednesday night.
With the loss, Capital fell to 15-5 overall and 12-3 in OAC play while dropping into a tie for first place in the Ohio Athletic Conference standings with Baldwin-Wallace. Mount Union improved to 14-7 overall and 9-6 in conference play.
Senior Danielle Sanna (Pickerington, Ohio/Pickerington North HS) paced the Crusaders with a career-high 23 points while connecting on 10-of-15 shots from the field. She added six rebounds, two assists, two steals and one blocked shot in 36 minutes of action.
Senior Caitlin Elsass (Batavia, Ohio/Clermont Northeastern HS) and junior Kristen Richardson (Oxford, Ohio/Talawanda HS) followed with 10 points each for Capital. Elsass made 4-of-9 shots from the floor with five rebounds while Richardson had four rebounds, two assists and one steal while hitting 5-of-12 shots on the night overall.
Senior Heather McAlpin (Cincinnati, Ohio/Colerain HS) added nine points and six rebounds, but it was not enough for a CU squad that hit on 27-of-52 (.519) shots and held a 33-27 lead in rebounding during a losing effort.
Mount Union took advantage of a 24-8 advantage in points off turnovers and held the Crusaders to just six assists and 20 turnovers on the night.
After both sides traded baskets to start the game to reach a 12-all tied score, Capital went on a 12-2 surge over the next 5:39 to build a 24-14 lead behind threes from Abbey Winland and Katy Lafferty as well as four points from Richardson and two more by Hilary Kuhns.
CU would take an eight-point into the locker room at halftime as Sanna led all scorers with 10 points in the first half followed with eight from Richardson. Capital hit on 17-of-32 shots in the opening stanza for a 36-28 advantage.
The lead would be as big as 10 with 14:35 left when Mount Union took its first surge at the Capital in run that would close the CU advantage to three with 6:47 remaining. From there Elsass and Kuhns would combine to hit 3-of-4 shots from the charity stripe in the Crusaders’ next two offensive possessions to take the CU lead back to six at 55-49 with 5:59 left.
Mount Union and Capital would battle back and forth with the game getting as close as one on a layup and free throw by Tessa Pohovey with 1:54 remaining. Sanna was fouled the next trip down the court for the Crusaders and she hit both shots for a 64-61 lead, but that would be the last of the scoring for CU.
Pohovey would hit a jumper with 44 seconds left to pull the Purple Raiders to within one with 44 seconds left. Then a Crusader was called for an offensive foul with just 17 seconds left on the clock to give the home team another offensive possession. Lauren Forquer took advantage as she scored with just four second left on the clock and Mount Union escaped with a 65-54 victory.
Capital will play host to ‘Think Pink’ Saturday against Ohio Northern in its next home game at the Capital Center on Feb. 14 beginning at 3 p.m.