Furious comeback falls short for women's basketball

Hamline (7-4, 5-3 in MIAC) trailed 49-26 early in the second half and 55-34 with less than 13:00 minutes to play before outscoring the Wildcats (8-3, 5-3) 17-2 over a four minutes span. Sophomore guard Grace Weinrich capped the spurt with five straight points to pull the Pipers within 57-51 with nine minutes to go.

The Pipers would later take the lead on two occasions, the last coming on a Jess Heinen three-pointer with 1:13 to play, but St. Catherine answered on their next possession on a Sarah Schneider basket. They would hit 4-of-4 free throws down the stretch to ice the win.

Heinen paced Hamline with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field. First-year Rochelle Sather, the reigning MIAC Player of the Week, added 16 points - 10 in the first half. Weinreich came off the bench to score 11 points.

Schneider led all scorers with 27 points on 9-of-17 shooting. She also added 9-of-14 from the charity stripe. The center scored 16 points to spark the Wildcats to a 45-26 halftime lead.

Erin Petrich chipped in 19 points while Ashley Busch netted 11 points for the Wildcats.

St. Catherine shot 42.1 percent for the game (24-57) - 51.6 percent in the first half (16-31). Hamline went cold in the first half, hitting 28.6 percent (10-35) of their shots only to heat up to 50 percent (15-30) in the second half.

Hamline will travel to Gustavus on Saturday. Game time is set for 3:00 p.m.