BLOOMSBURG, Pa. – The Bloomsburg women's basketball team came up short on the road in a 63-58 contest against Mansfield on Wednesday. 

Both teams dealt with off-night shooting from the floor, but the Huskies got the lesser end of the exchange. The team shot a combined 22-of-61 from the floor (36.1 percent) while also struggling from the charity stripe, making 60 percent (9-of-15) of attempts. Alison Hatajik (Duncansville, Pa./Hollidaysburg) had a career-high and team-leading 13 points on the evening with five rebounds. Katie Starr (Berwick, Pa./Berwick) had an off night from the floor but managed to post 10 points and 10 rebounds for her eighth double-double of the season while matching a season-best with four steals. Maddie LaFrance (Harrisburg, Pa./Central Dauphin) was the third Husky to reach double-figures, adding 10 points and four rebounds to the ledger. 

Bloomsburg drops to 4-10 on the season with a 2-6 record in PSAC action. The Mountaineers move to 6-7 overall with the win and a 3-5 mark in conference play.

How It Happened: 
The game started sloppy for both sides, with each team scoring two points a piece in the opening three minutes of action. In that stretch, the sides turned the ball over four times. Mansfield knocked down the first basket of the night just over a minute into the game as Ella Kale (Spring Grove, Pa./Spring Grove) got the Huskies started with a jumper for a 2-2 tie.

Another minute of game time passed before the Mountaineers took a 5-2 lead off a three. The three from Kristen Fulford kicked off an individual 7-0 run to help Mansfield to a 9-2 lead before Bloomsburg scored its first bucket in 3:30 with a three-pointer from Lauren Kirsch (Palmyra, Pa./Lower Dauphin). The sides each secured four points in the final minute of the first quarter to make it 13-9 for Mansfield after 10 minutes. 

The scoring continued to be contentious between the sides, with a combined 18 points from the teams in the second quarter. The Mountaineers pulled out to a 21-11 lead for a game-high lead on the night. Hatajik scored the final four points of the half to make it a 23-17 contest. 

The pace of the game picked up as both teams picked up their shooting form. Starr looked to get more involved in the offense out of the break and did so by scoring the first three points out of the break to cut it to three points at 23-20. A 7-0 stretch for the Huskies, capped off by a LaFrance three-pointer, gave Bloomsburg its first lead of the game halfway through the third. 

A little burst from Mansfield helped the home team reclaim at 37-31 with two minutes left in the third period. A five-point swing from Hatajik with 1:20 to play in the quarter took it to a 42-39 game with 10 minutes to play. 

The Mountaineers had the first swing of momentum in the fourth quarter to grab a six-point edge three minutes into the period, fending off Bloomsburg at several points to maintain that cushion. With just under four minutes to play, the Huskies found themselves in their largest deficit of the night, down 11 by a score of 59-48. 

LaFrance and Kirsch helped to make it a two-possession game with two minutes to play at 59-54. Another late three from Kirsch made it a one-score game, but the Bloomsburg defense could not force a critical stop to get a chance in the final moments.

On the Horizon:
The Huskies continue their stretch of road games on Saturday, January 13, at 1:00 p.m. against Millersville.