The Lady Tigers dominated the first half against the Lakers from Silver Lake College, but couldn’t hold the lead late and ended up losing the game in overtime, 66-64.   The Tigers showed little signs of a long layoff and used a strong inside game and tight defense to open up a 34-18 halftime lead.  

The Tigers maintained a 10 point lead with about three minutes to play, but foul trouble, impatience on offense and key turnovers hurt down the stretch as the Lakers hit key shots, including two late 3 pointers to send the game to overtime.

The Tigers got off to an inauspicious start to the overtime period by missing two front ends of one and one free throw attempts and got down by five points early.  However, they weren’t done as Marissa Pelletier scored a bucket off a nice feed from Kerie Rudd with 5.1 seconds to seemingly send the game to a second overtime period.   The Lakers had other plans though, and went the length of the court and scored at the buzzer to win the game by two points. 

Jessica Sikorski had another strong offensive game with 32 points before fouling out late in regulation.  Marissa Pelletier added 14 points, Stephanie Miller scored eight and Kara Cunningham contributed five points in her first action as a Tiger. 

Jessica also led the rebounders with 13.  Kerie Rudd contributed eight rebounds and six assists. 

“Our execution down the stretch was not as good as it needed to be,” Coach Renzema said after the game.  “We took some early shots that we didn’t need and made a few critical turnovers that weren’t really forced.  I like the way we came out in the first half, especially after the long layoff, but we need to play a full 40 minutes to win games like this.”

The Tigers begin a busy stretch of the schedule and will host Andrews University on January 10.