Hawk women fall in OT at Monmouth

After opening the season with two come from behind wins, the UW-Whitewater women’s basketball team fell in overtime 90-89 to Monmouth College in the championship game of the Monmouth Invitational.

The Fighting Scots outscored Whitewater 13-6 from the charity stripe in the extra session.

The Warhawks led the first eight minutes of the game however Monmouth came back, forcing 12 Warhawk turnovers, to lead 34-27 by halftime. 

Whitewater found itself looking up at a double digit deficit, Monmouth leading 49-37 with 12;57 remaining in the second half.  And, as they had done in the two previous games, the Warhawks came back.

Cortney Kumerow accounted for eight of ten points in a streak that took Whitewater from trailing 64-58 to a 68-66 lead, Whitewater's first of the second half, with 3:33 left.

Kumerow made a pair of free throws with 0:45 left to give Whitewater a 74-72 lead, but Fighting Scot sophomore guard Paige Nord hit a jumper with 0:30 on the clock to knot the game at 74.  After a Monmouth timeout, UW-W missed a three point attempt, then got the ball back when the Scots fumbled the rebound out of bounds with three seconds left but its three pointer at the buzzer failed forcing the game to overtime.

The extra session boiled down to free throws. Monmouth hit 13 of its 15 free throws in the overtime while Whitewater was limited to 6 of 7 from the line.

Kaitlin Thill led all scorers with 23 points, including 5-8 from beyond the arc and 6-7 from the line.  Kumerow added 21, on 6-7 from the floor and 9-11 at the stripel Freshman Abbie Reeves chipped in with 18.  Kumerow and Katie Burton  grabbed eight rebounds each, with Burton also leading the team with four assists.  Whitewater shot 37% from the floor, 33% from three point range, and was 27-35 (77%) from the line.  The Warhawks committed 22 turnovers/

Monmouth was led by Paige Nord's 20 points, going 9-10 from the line.  Zipporah Williams added 19, Caley Corban 15, and Marla Willard 14.  Williams notched a double double, also pulling down 15 rebounds,

UW-W, eighth in the D3hoops.com poll, is 2-1.  Monmouth remains unbeaten at 3-0.  Whitewater will host Edgewood College Saturday, November 24 at 5:00 in a Parent's Day game.