Box Score The Dominican University women's basketball team came up short against the Edgewood College Eagles 79-75 Tuesday evening, despite a career-high 24 points from sophomore Allie Tapanes (Winfield, Ill.).

The Stars started fast, jumping out to an 8-2 lead over the first three minutes as freshman Claudia DeNigris (Addison, Ill.) knocked down a three moments before converting on an old-fashioned three-point play to cap the Stars' run.

Tapanes later gave the Stars their largest lead of the night as she knocked down a pair of free throws to push Dominican's lead to 14-7 with 13:34 to play in the opening half.

Edgewood answered with an 11-2 run of its own to take a two-point, 18-16, advantage midway through the first.

After exchanging leads over the next six minutes, the Eagles outscored the Stars 10-2 over the final three minutes of the half to carry a 40-33 advantage into the break.

After a quick 5-0 run by the Stars cut the lead to two, Edgewood recovered with a 9-0 run to open their largest lead, 49-38 with over 17 minutes remaining.

The Stars started chipping away at the lead, eventually evening the score, 52-52, on a Tapanes three-pointer with 12:53 to play.

As they did in the first half, the teams exchanged leads with Dominican opening a 75-72 but the Stars went scoreless over the final two minutes while Edgewood scored the final seven points of the game.

Tapanes went 9-for-18 from the field, including 4-for-9 from the three, to lead four players in double-figures scoring for Dominican. The Stars' 5-5 guard pulled down five rebounds and added three assists in 28 minutes off the Dominican bench.

Kaylee Paciora (Scottsdale, Ariz.) added 18 points, also off the bench, on 6-for-9 shooting while going 6-for-8 at the free throw line. DeNigris and Alyssa Hernandez (Bartlett, Ill.) dropped in 11 and ten points in the losing effort respectively.

The Eagles were paced by Courtney Spangler and Brooke McBain who netted 23 and 20 points respectively.

As a team, Edgewood converted on 20 of 30 attempts from the foul line.

"The important thing for us to take away from this game," said Gabby Johnson, the Stars' second-year head coach, "is that we are improving. We are starting to play to our strengths and not allow our weaknesses stop us from doing what we want to do. Where we still do need to improve is on the defensive end of the floor. We can be undisciplined when we get fatigued and we can't afford to send any teams to the free throw line thirty times."

The Stars, now 0-13 on the season, head up to Lakeland College on Saturday to take on the Muskies. Tipoff is slated for 4:15 p.m.