The Dominican University women's basketball team erased a 12-point first-quarter deficit, building their own eight-point fourth-quarter lead before the Albion College Britons ended the game on a 15-2 run to knock off the Stars 61-56 on Tuesday night in River Forest, Illinois.
 
Allie Tapanes (Winfield, Ill.) scored a season-high 21 points in the losing effort while sophomore Jasmyn Hardin (Cincinnati, Ohio) notched her third double-double of the season with 20 points and 19 rebounds.  Tapanes and Hardin combined to go 17-for-31 from the field to power the Stars' offense.
 
"We are finally getting the feel of playing with each other," said Tapanes when asked about her team's performance on Tuesday night.  "We talked about kicking it out more and we knew that if they were going to close in on the post, the three-point shot was going to be there.  We hit our shots when we need to…just need to be a little better at the free throw line."
 
The Britons got off to a hot start, outscoring the Stars 22-10 in the first quarter behind 9-for-17 shooting and turning seven Dominican turnovers into 11 points.
 
Dominican got going in the second quarter, opening the period on a 11-0 run that spanned 4:48 to narrow the gap to 22-21 on one of Tapanes' three three-pointers in the frame.
 
The Britons' Emily Zgoda broke Albion's scoreless stretch on the next possession, knocking down the Britons' lone three-pointer in the game to put the Britons' back up by four.  The sides traded baskets the rest of the half as the Britons took a 31-27 lead into the break.
 
Dominican continued to chip away at the Britons' lead, eventually taking a 38-37 lead midway through the third period on a baseline jumper by Claudia DeNigris (Addison, Ill.).
 
Tapanes later closed out the period with a triple to put the Stars on top 48-44 heading to the fourth.
 
The Stars opened the fourth on a 6-2 run, capped by a second chance basket by Angela Evola (Marseilles, Ill.) who corralled a missed layup by DeNigris to give the Stars their largest lead of the night.  However, Dominican went scoreless over the next five minutes while the Britons scored 15 points over the final five minutes of the game to erase the Stars' lead and hand Dominican their fourth loss of the season.
 
"Our team energy dropped for some reason," commented Hardin when asked about the final five minutes.  "We were committing fouls and sending them to the free throw line and they were making their free throws.  Without that energy, it is hard to build on the lead and momentum we had established."
 
For the Britons, Jay Bard scored 14 points off the bench to lead the way.  Erin Nelson added 13 points, scoring eight in the first quarter, while Darian Payne chipped in 11 points and pulled down a team-high 16 rebounds.
 
The Stars shot slightly better than the Britons for the game, 35-percent compared to 32-percent, and connected on seven three-pointers while the Britons managed just one triple but Dominican committed 26 turnovers that led to 18 points for the Britons and Albion went 20-for-29 at the foul line while Dominican was just 5-for-10.
 
The Stars, now 0-4 on the season, open Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play on Saturday, traveling to Rockford to take on the Rockford University Regents.  Tipoff is scheduled for 2:00 p.m.