Box Score EVANSVILLE, Ind. - In its final contest before Thanksgiving, the University of Evansville women's basketball team dropped a back-and-forth game with Purdue Fort Wayne, 72-66, on Tuesday evening inside Meeks Family Fieldhouse.

"I liked how we made that run in the second quarter to close the half," said Aces' women's basketball head coach Matt Ruffing. "Unfortunately...we're not playing as one and energized and taking advantage of the opportunities that we have and every time we step out in practice and we step out in a game, we're just making some careless decisions with the basketball, just not strong enough with it; that's where a lot of our turnovers come from . We've got easy buckets that we've got to finish and we've just got to get tougher."

Coming off the bench, redshirt senior Brooke Bishop paced the Purple Aces with 13 points on six-of-eight shooting from the field. Two other Aces finished in double figures with freshman Tayzha Buck recording 12 points on four three-pointers and senior Kerri Gasper scoring 11. The tale of the night was the free-throw line and foul trouble as the Mastodons out-scored Evansville, 14-2 from the line and finished with 10 fewer fouls.

The first quarter saw Purdue Fort Wayne take a 14-11 lead as the Aces dealt with early foul trouble. In the first period, Evansville had a pair of its post players pick up two fouls as both teams shot just 4-15 from the floor in the opening stanza. Purdue Fort Wayne built its advantage to its largest point of the game at 26-18 midway through the second quarter. As the quarter came to a close, Evansville put together an 11-2 run to gain a 34-30 lead at the break.
 

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Box Score (PDF)

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Seeing its lead halved in the third quarter, Evansville held a 54-52 advantage heading into the fourth period after the Mastodons shot 60% (9-15) from the field. The final quarter began with the Aces increasing their lead to four on a layup by Bishop, but Purdue Fort Wayne battled back to take a one-point lead with 7:44 left in the game. After the Mastodons increased their lead to three, Evansville got back within one on three separate occasions. With 29 seconds left, the Aces fouled to send Purdue Fort Wayne to the line as Anna Lappenkuper hit four-straight free throws in back-to-back trips to the charity stripe as Purdue Fort Wayne earned the 72-66 win.

From the field, the Masotodons edged Evansville, shooting 44.8% to the Aces' 40.6%. The rebounding battle was an even one with both sides pulling-down 40 boards, while the Mastodons recorded 13 assists with 12 turnovers to 12 assists and 14 turnovers for Evansville.

The Aces enjoy a nine-day break from competition before returning to the court against Marshall on the road in Huntington, W.V. on November 29.

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