Reading, PA – The Messiah women's basketball team traveled to Albright on Saturday afternoon and suffered a 71-63 defeat at the hands of the Lions. Albright opened up a 17-point lead late in the third-quarter, but the Falcons battled back.
 
Messiah used a 10-0 run that spanned the final four points of the start of the third-quarter to close the gap to seven points at 56-49. In the fourth-quarter, Messiah closed the gap to as few as four at 65-61 with 2:03 remaining but a 6-2 run by the Lions put the game away and gave the Falcons a 71-63 loss.
 
Gillian Glackin led three double-digit scorers with 19 points. Kaitlyn Hoff chimed in with 16 points and Jen Fairbanks added 10 points.
 
The game started with a very evenly matched first-quarter. Messiah scored the opening bucket of the game off a jumper from Kaitlyn Hoff before Albright went on an 8-2 run over the next 4:40 to take an 8-4 lead. The Falcons then scored eight of the final 11 points in the quarter to take a 12-11 lead into the second period. Four different Falcons scored in the 8-3 run to close out the quarter.
 
The Lions collected the first two buckets of the quarter to take a three-point lead. The Falcons and Lions then traded buckets throughout the rest of the quarter with Albright holding a lead for the entirety of the quarter.
 
Throughout the quarter the Lions never held a lead of more than five points, but seeming every time the Falcons connected for a bucket the Lions would counter almost instantly. Hoff and Fairbanks led the Falcons in scoring in the second with four-points a piece while Maci Thorton and Hannah Brown each added two.
 
Emily O'Donnell made a layup at the end of the half to push the Albright lead to five at 29-24, heading into the break.
 
After the intermission the Lions took over, going on a 19-6 run over the first 6:20 to take an 18-point lead, their largest of the contest. Despite trailing by their largest margin in almost two months, the Falcons continued to battle chipping into the Albright lead.
 
With 30 seconds left in the quarter, and the Falcons trailing by 17, Maci Thornton made a free throw that started a 10-0 run for the Falcons that included the first six points of the fourth-quarter. With eight minutes remaining in the game, the Falcons had closed the gap to seven points after a pair of free throws by Gillian Glackin.
 
As mentioned, the Falcons would trade buckets with the Lions through the middle portion of the quarter. Until another pair of free throws from Glackin made it a six-point game with just over two minutes remaining. On the ensuing inbounds pass, Libby Timmer stole the ball and went in for an uncontested layup to make the score 65-61. Unfortunately for the Falcons it was as close as they would get as the Lions used a 5-2 run to end the game and come away with a 71-63 victory.
 
Gillian Glackin kept the Falcons in the game in the second-half, scoring 17 of her team-high 19 points after the break. Glackin was 4-6 from the floor and 9-10 from the charity stripe across the final two quarters.
 
With four games left on the schedule, the Falcons currently sit in third-place in the MAC Commonwealth trailing Albright and Stevenson. Messiah will next take the floor against the Hood Blazers in Brubaker Auditorium on Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m.