Pioneer rally comes up a point short

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville women's basketball team produced a valiant comeback effort in Tuesday night's season opener, but ultimately came up one point short in 52-51 loss to visiting Ripon College.

Coach Megan Wilson's Pioneers rallied from a 15-point third-quarter deficit and took a 51-50 lead with 27 seconds left to play on layup by freshman Kassie Hansen (La Crosse, Wis.).

But the Redhawks (1-0) regained the lead just 11 seconds later when freshman Laurissa Johnson drained a baseline jumper on a feed from junior point guard Megan Jensen with 16 seconds left.

UW-Platteville (0-1) had one last chance, but after a UWP timeout, junior guard Morgan Hartman's (Rochester, Minn.) driving runner fell short as time expired.

Hartman finished with a team-high 12 points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals to lead the Pioneers.  

Junior center Elisa Bilderback (Platteville, Wis.) finished with eight points and four rebounds. Six-foot-four freshman Allison Prestegaard (Amboy, Ill.) added eight points, five rebounds and five blocks off the bench in her first collegiate game.

Freshman Maggie Oimoen scored a game-high 16 points on 8 of 21 shooting and grabbed six rebounds off the bench to lead Ripon.

The game was the first for both teams using the NCAA's new system of four 10-minute quarters for women's basketball instead of the old two 20-minute halves format.

The Pioneers took a 4-2 lead on a layup by Hansen just 2:28 into the game, but went scoreless for the next 8:13 as Ripon went on a 14-0 run to build a 16-4 lead.

Hartman drained a three-pointer at the 9:19 mark of the second quarter to stop the bleeding. A layup by sophomore Blaire Lutes (Benton, Wis.) pulled the Pioneers within five at 16-11 with 5:21 left in the period, but the Redhawks closed the half strong to take a 25-17 lead into the locker room.

Ripon used a 9-3 run to open the third quarter to open up a 34-19 lead with 4:43 left in the game.

A triple by freshman Morgan Horstman (Bangor, Wis.) made it a four-point game midway through the fourth quarter, and a three-point play by Kassie Buchholz (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) cut the Pioneer deficit to a single point at 44-43 with 4:24 left.

The Pioneers answered back-to-back baskets by Oimonen, with buckets from Buchholz and Bilderback to make it 48-47 with 1:45 remaining.

Horstman drained with another three-pointer with 1:09 left  and then after a steal by Bilderback set up Hansen's go-ahead layup with 27 seconds, that gave UWP its first lead since the opening minutes of the game.

The Pioneers travel to De Pere on Friday to face Silver Lake College at 7 p.m . in the first game of the two-day St. Norbert College Tournament. UW-Platteville will face the host school Saturday at 2 p.m.

by Jason Nihles, Sports Information Assistant