Box Score The Dominican University women’s basketball team came up on the short side of a 67-61 Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) matchup with the Marian University Sabres on Saturday afternoon in River Forest.
 
The Stars were paced by Allie Tapanes (Winfield, Ill.) who scored a career-high 18 points on 6-for-11 shooting from the field in 40 minutes of work.  The Stars’ freshman was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field, including 2-for-2 from behind the three-point arc, in the first half.
 
The Sabres opened the game on an 11-1 run capped by a Sarah Albert three to force a Dominican timeout.  The Stars answered with a three of their own, as Katie Budz (Orland Park, Ill.) connected from long distance to cut into the Marian lead as Dominican spent the next 14 minutes chipping away at the Sabre lead.
 
The Stars eventually knotted the game at 27-27 with 2:41 to play in the first half as Budz finished in the paint but the Sabres closed out the half on a 6-0 run to take a 33-27 lead at the break.
 
Dominican’s Stacy Reynolds (La Grange Park, Ill.) scored the first four points of the second half to pull the Stars to within two at 33-31 but Marian answered with a 10-1 run capped by back-to-back three’s from Dani Huray and Ashley Backes to run out to a 43-32 lead with 15:30 left to play.


 
The Stars refused to go quietly, erasing the entire 11-point deficit over the next ten minutes, eventually evening the score at 49-49 on a pair of free throws from Laura Knieps (Tinley Park, Ill.).  After Albert knocked down a jumper for the Sabres, Knieps evened the score again with a layup with just over four minutes to play.
 
Huray put the Sabres back in the lead with a pair of free throws and Backes extended the lead to 56-51 for the Sabres with a three with 3:11 remaining and the Sabres held on the rest of the way.
 
Albert led all scorers as she poured in 19 points for the Sabres while Rissa Cerveny added 17 and Huray chipped in 15 to go along with ten assists and eight rebounds in the winning effort.
 
Knieps scored 16 for the Stars in the loss.
 
Dominican drops to 0-6 on the season and 0-2 in NAC play.  The Stars will host the Wisconsin Lutheran College Warriors on Tuesday for a 7:00 p.m. tipoff in the Igini Sports Forum.