Comeback falls short as Storm lose at Dubuque 78-72

DUBUQUE, Iowa – Brittany Hedrick scored 16 points but the Simpson women's basketball team couldn't slow down Jenna Kotas in a 78-72 loss at Dubuque on Saturday afternoon.

Kotas scored 25 points and Meggie Schmidt had 16 and four steals for the Spartans (11-6, 5-1 Iowa Conference), who's suffocating defense forced Simpson into 25 turnovers.

Katie Ahrenholtz came off the bench to score 12 points and Britney Boland had 11 and five rebounds for the Storm (13-4, 3-3).

Dubuque pulled away in the second half when a 3 by Kotas ignited a 13-0 run. A Kotas lay-in made the score 47-33 with 13:47 left, the largest lead of the game.

Hedrick hit a 3 to stop the run, also halting a 4-minute, 50-second drought from the field in the process.

Simpson slowly got back into the game, pulling within 58-55 on an Ahrenholtz free throw with 6:21 left. Kayla Springer hit a 3 to extend the lead back to six, though, and Simpson couldn't get closer than four the rest of the way.

It looked like Dubuque would pull away late in the first half before 3s by Whitney Van Wyk and Morgan Mauro in the final 2:12 helped narrow the gap. Dubuque led 27-19 when Van Wyk canned a 3 and Mauro hit one with 4 seconds left in the half to make it 29-26 at the break.

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Simpson hosts Central on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The Dutch (9-8, 0-6) lost to Coe 62-52 on Saturday.