Chester, PA – The Messiah women's basketball team outscored Widener University  21-13 in the third quarter of Saturday afternoon's game en route to a 73-66 victory. Dominique Seamon scored a season-high 19 points to lead the Falcons, while Kaitlyn Hoff contributed 11 points in the MAC Commonwealth win.

The Falcons (16-7, 10-4) struggled to put points on the board in the early minutes of play, allowing the Pride (12-11, 5-9) to take a 10-2 lead just five minutes into the first quarter.
 
Messiah quickly turned things around by outscoring Widener 10-2 to pull within a bucket. Alecia Rohrer, Hannah Brown, Deanna Eyerkuss, and Kaitlyn Hoff each contributed points to bring their team to a 10-12 deficit.
 
The Falcons' momentum was slowed a bit when Widener's Tasjah Davis hit a three-pointer to extend the Pride's advantage to 10-15. The Pride hit another three with just seconds left on the clock to end the first quarter with an 11-18 lead.
 
At the start of the second quarter, the Falcons quickly chipped away at their deficit to take the lead with 8:14 left in the half. Dominique Seamon hit a jumper and a three then was followed by layups from Gillian Glackin and Brown, resulting in a 20-19 advantange.
 
The lead was short lived, however, as the Pride pulled ahead by five points following a three point play by Nikki Sutliff.
 
The back-and-forth action continued through the final five minutes of the half, resulting in a 31-31 tie at the half.

The third quarter proved to be the difference maker in the game as the Falcons outscored the Pride 21-13 to take a 52-44 lead. Seamon drained two more threes and added a layup while Jen Fairbanks (7 points), and Hoff (5 points) each contributed to the offensive push.
 
The Falcons extended their lead to 16 points in the fourth following a strong 9-1 effort, but it was Widener's Allison Gallagher who scored five straight points to give her team new life.

Following Gallagher's efforts, the Pride really took it to the Falcons; resulting in 11 fouls by Messiah.  Those fouls proved quite costly as the Pride scored 11 straight points on free throws alone in the final three minutes of play. 

The Pride's only points that were not from the charity stripe in the later stages of the game came in their final possession when Ally Ferrucci scored on a layup and drew a foul. She finished the three-point play to end the game with a team-high 19 points.
 
Fortunately for the Falcons, their foul trouble wasn't as detrimental as it could have been. Despite giving up 11 points from the free throw line, the Falcons were 6-8 from the charity stripe themselves, which helped them maintain a solid lead through the final minutes of play.
 
On the day, the Falcons shot 56.7% (17-30) from the free throw line, 54.5% (6-11) from three, and 47.2% (25-53) overall as compared to the Pride's 30.4% from the field, only 22.2% fro three, and 64.5% from the line.

With the win, the Falcons move to 10-4 in the MAC Commonwealth while the Pride falls to 5-9. The Falcons play their second-to-last regular season game on Tuesday when they host Lebanon Valley College at 6:00 p.m.