Wildcats Fall on the Road at Missouri Baptist

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Playing on the road for the third straight game, Baker women's basketball came up short in its trip to Missouri Baptist on Saturday, falling to the Spartans by a score of 80-73.

Similar to the other two road games, the Wildcats were able to hang tough with the Spartans for most of the game, but a couple of key stretches in the second and third quarters helped MBU to push ahead in the conference matchup.

Baker tallied a season-high 11 threes, made seven more free throws than MBU, and won the turnover battle, 12-15, but that wasn't enough to overcome a Spartans side that shot over 50 percent from the floor (31-of-60) and built up a 17-point lead early in the fourth period.

After setting a season-high in points (21) on Wednesday at Peru State, Kennedy Bryan improved her mark by one and came within one of tying the program's three-point record after going an incredible 7-for-10 from deep, finishing with a team-high 22 points.

Taniya Tease chipped in a solid overall day with 13 points, seven assists, three rebounds and two steals. Battling through a tenacious MBU defense, Gabby Rose reached double digits for the 18th time this season and finished with 11 points. Mariah Dightman joined the rest in double figures with 11 points as well.

Things started off hot for BU in St. Louis with an 8-2 burst highlighted by back-to-back 3-pointers from Bryan and Rose to get the Baker bench fired up right from the start. Rihanna Blanchard had a handful of hard drives to the rim all game long, earning a couple of layups in the first quarter

Bryan splashed in another three, Corrine Cole tacked on a couple of buckets and Tease nailed one final triple to settle the first quarter score at a 20-20 deadlock.

In the second period, the Wildcats' hot-shooting began to cool off a little bit as Missouri Baptist would go on to outscore BU, 16-8, in the frame. Dightman accounted for four of BU's eight points, getting a layup to fall off of a nice dish from Tease in the final seconds to trim Baker's halftime deficit to 36-28.

The Spartans hit a three immediately out of the intermission to build their first double-digit lead of the contest, but Baker climbed back within single digits towards the end of the period. Tease scored all six of her points in the quarter by way of the free-throw line, while Bryan swished in another set of threes.

Rose hit a pair of free throws to bring BU within eight, but MBU claimed the final four points to go into the fourth quarter with a 59-47 lead.

After seeing Missouri Baptist take its biggest lead of the game with just over eight minutes left, Baker tried to muster up a fourth-quarter rally with Bryan doing her best to spark the momentum swing from beyond the arc. Dightman hit a three to make it a 10-point game with 2:51 left and the Wildcats got as close as seven, but the Spartans held on to claim the win, 80-73.

Coming off the three-game road stand, Baker will host its next four games at home, beginning with a midweek rivalry matchup against Benedictine on Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 5:30 p.m., inside the Collins Center.

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