LYNCHBURG, Va. – Host Randolph College kept its strong start to the ODAC women's basketball season going with a 55-52 win over Shenandoah Wednesday evening.
The WildCats (11-1, 2-1 ODAC) closed out a contest that featured seven ties and 11 lead changes by making five of their final six shots from the line in the last 91 seconds of the contest.
Allie Druffel, who started the run by making 1 of 2, gave her club the lead for good.
Shenandoah (5-7, 1-2) was able to cut the deficit to one point on three different occasions, the last with six seconds left, but could not come all the way back.
Freshman Brie Girouard made it 53-52 with a layup at the six-second mark and the Hornets immediately fouled, but Brie Holdren made both of her attempts from the charity stripe and SU was unable to get off a game-tying 3-point attempt.
The Hornets took a 23-21 lead into the halftime locker room thanks to six points each from Ashley McGhee, Erin French and Holly Chittenden.
Randolph scored the opening bucket of the second to tie the game at 23-23 and the two teams remained within six points of each other for the remainder of the contest.
SU held that six-point advantage following a pair of French free throws at 5:49 only to see the 'Cats claw back with six straight points in a span of 1:28.
The two teams were tied on three occasions and traded the lead twice in the final 3:49, the last on Druffel's free throws with 1:31 to play.
French led the Hornets with 14 points while Girouard added 10 and Chittenden eight with a co-game-high 11 rebounds.
Shenandoah hosts Guilford on Saturday in a 2 p.m. ODAC contest.
###