Audio Clip of Connor's Game-Winning Three-Pointer (QuickTime)
St. Paul, Minn. -- Amber Connor's (Fy./Rosemount, Minn.) three-point basket with 0.1 seconds left lifted the Carleton College women's basketball team to a dramatic 66-65 win over host College of St. Catherine.
Sarah Lincoln (So./Rockford, Minn.) led the Knights, winners of eight of their first 10 games, with 15 points and 11 rebounds and Annie Isler (Jr./Minneapolis/Hopkins) added six points, five assists and five steals, including a key three-pointer with 70 seconds left.
After Isler's three with 1:10 left tied the game at 63-63, both teams traded misses before St. Catherine's Sarah Schneider made two free throws with 12.5 seconds left. After each team took a timeout, Isler found Connor wide open from the right wing, and the rookie calmly buried her first three-pointer of the game for the win.
Rachel Berglund led all scorers with 21 points for the Wildcats (6-3, 3-3 MIAC) and Schneider added 14 points. Erin Petrich added nine points, five assists, four rebounds and three steals.
Hannah Oken-Berg (So./Portland, Ore./Lincoln) tallied 11 points and five rebounds for Carleton (8-2, 5-2 MIAC). Megan Mileusnic (Fy./Orono, Minn.) added career highs of nine points and 11 rebounds, Connor tallied nine points and Annie Eckhoff (Fy./Northfield, Minn.) added a career-best eight points on 4-of-5 shooting.
The Knights led by as many as nine in the first half, but the Wildcats whittled the lead to 27-24 at the half and outscored Carleton, 17-9, to open the second. The Wildcats still led by six with 10 minutes, 43 seconds left, but the Knights used a 14-4 spurt, with Connor scoring three points and Sarah Kunelius (So./Eagan, Minn.) knocking down a trey, to open a four-point lead with less than five minutes left.
Schneider made a spinning layup inside and Petrich hit a tough step-back triple to push the hosts back in front, 59-58, and the teams traded the lead three times in the final three minutes. Consecutive layups by Trisha Johnson and Schneider gave the Wildcats a 63-60 lead, but Isler drained the three-pointer to set the stage for the final minute.
Early it was all Carleton, as the Knights scored the game's first seven points and led by as many as nine points seven minutes into the game. The Wildcats rattled off seven unanswered points before the Knights countered with a 7-1 run, eventually leading 22-14 with less than eight minutes left in the half. The Wildcats, though, scored on four straight possessions near the end of the half and trailed by three at the break and Carleton was 2-for-10 with four turnovers over the half's final seven minutes.
Turnovers huts the Knights' cause, as they turned the ball over 24 times, 13 in the second half. The Knights shot 50.9 percent from the floor, including 57.7 percent in the second half. The Wildcats made 44.8 percent of their shots, the first time this season a Carleton opponent has shot better than 40 percent from the field. The Knights, the top rebounding team in the MIAC, owned a 39-22 edge on the glass. Free-throw shooting also hurt the Knights, as they were an uncharacteristic 8-for-16 from the line. They came into the contest shooting better than 70 percent as a team.
The Knights are back in action on Wednesday, Jan. 10, hosting St. Mary's University as part of a men's/women's doubleheader. The women's game will start at 7:45 p.m. and can be heard worldwide on Knights Online.
