ORU Women’s Basketball Loses To IPFW

FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- Junior guard Amy Pryor's (Norman, Okla.) wide open three-pointer bounced off the rim as the buzzer went off, as the Oral Roberts women's basketball team fell, 64-67, at IPFW Saturday afternoon.

ORU evens its overall record to 11-11 and falls to 4-7 in the Summit League, while IPFW improves to 4-17 overall and 3-9 in conference action. The Golden Eagles dropped their first game against the Mastodons, as ORU is now 4-1 all-time against IPFW.

Junior forward Janae Voelker (Newton, Kan.) posted a team-high 17 points and pulled down nine rebounds and senior guard Mariana Camargo (Blumenau, Brazil) scored 15 points, all in the second half. Senior center Monah Pegorari tallied her second double-double this season with 12 points and 12 rebounds, while Pryor chipped in 11 points for the Golden Eagles.

Pegorari got ORU started on the right track with a layup in the first 30 seconds in the first half. A layup from freshman forward Jordan Pyle (Mustang, Okla.) kept the Golden Eagles up by three, 5-2, with 16:01 left in the half. Jumpers from both Voelker and Pryor put ORU up 9-5 at the 14:20 mark before the Mastodons made three straight three-pointers in the next two minutes to take their first lead, 14-9, with 12:35 remaining.

A three-pointer from Jones at 10:39 kept the Golden Eagles to within a three-point game, while a Pegorari layup sustained that one possession gap, 16-19, with 10:05 left. The Mastodons then took a 10-3 run to go up 29-19 with 3:41 to play in the half and IPFW ended the first half of action on an 18-3 run to take a 40-22 lead heading into the break.

The Golden Eagles opened up the second half on a 7-2 run with five of those points from Voelker, as Voelker and Pegorari led the ORU offense through the next four minutes of action to ORU back to a 10 point game, 40-50, with 12:59 left to play. Four straight points from Camargo brought the Golden Eagles back to within six, 44-50, at the 11:46 mark, as the Mastodons responded with a 7-3 run, recapturing a double-digit lead, 57-45, with 9:02 remaining. Camargo and Voelker charged ahead bringing ORU back to within eight points, 51-59, while a Pryor layup kept it to within six points, 53-59, with 4:37 to go.

A 5-4 IPFW run put the Mastodons back up by nine, 64-55, with just over two minutes to play, as ORU clawed at the lead, scoring nine points in a two minute span, as IPFW held onto a one-point lead. Two free throws from IPFW's Chelsey Jackson took the Mastodons back up to a three point lead and ORU missed two three-point shots in the last six seconds to give IPFW the win.

ORU shot 41.9% (26-62) from the field, including 16.7% (2-12) from three-point range and 47.6% (10-21) from the free throw line.

The Golden Eagles out-rebounded the Mastodons, 43-36, as ORU scored 42 points in the paint compared to IPFW's 16. The Mastodon's shot five more three-pointers in the second half and made four more free throws to seal the win.

IPFW shot 38.3% from the field (23-60), including 25.0% (7-28) from behind the arc and 82.4% (14-17) from the charity stripe.