Dec. 4, 2008

Box Score

River Forest, IL - The Dominican University Stars led by as many as 10 points throughout the first half, but came up on the losing end of an 84-70 affair with the Benedictine University Eagles in Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) women's basketball action on Wednesday night.

Dominican opened the game on a 16-6 run that was capped by a Jessica Salinas (Bolingbrook, IL) layup to open a ten-point lead with under 14 minutes remaining in the first half. The Eagles then went a 20-10 run of their own to knot the game at 26-26 with 5:48 remaining in the opening period which Dominican closed out with a six-point advantage at 37-31.

Back-to-back three-point field goals from the Eagles Lidia Arias narrowed the Stars' lead to 37-36 in the opening minutes of the second half. The two teams exchanged leads until Arias connected on another three, her third of the half, to put Benedictine ahead for good at 54-52 with just over 10 minutes remaining in regulation. The three-point bucket was the start of an 8-2 run that spanned three minutes and opened an eight-point lead for the Eagles that they would extend in the game's final moments, connecting on all eight of their trips to the free throw line in the final minute of play.

Dominican's Lindsey Trent (Frankfort, IN) paced the Stars' offense with 19 points on 7-for-17 shooting from the field in the losing effort. Salinas added 18 points of her own while sophomore Megan Molloy (Chicago, IL) chipped in 11 points to round out the Stars' double-digit scorers.

All five starters for Benedictine reached double-figure scoring totals led by Arias's 19 points.

The loss drops the Stars to 2-1 on the young season and 0-1 in the NAC. The Stars will look to pick up their first conference win on Saturday as they host Marian University. Tipoff is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. in Dominican's Igini Sports Forum and the action will be streamed live on the dustars.com website with both video and live stats being offered to anyone with an internet connection.