The Dominican University women's basketball team led by as many as 20 points in the second half before hanging on for a 76-73 win over the visiting Rockford University Regents in the Igini Sports Forum on Tuesday night.
 
Claudia DeNigris (Addison, Ill.), who scored a team-high 18 points in the winning effort for Dominican, buried a three to extend the Stars' lead to 49-29 with 3:28 to go in the third quarter before the Regents started to mount their comeback.  Rockford closed out the period with a 9-0 run to pull within 49-38 heading into the fourth.
 
The Stars built the lead back up to 16 early in the fourth and led 60-47 with 6:30 to go when Dominican's leading scorer on the year, Allie Tapanes (Winfield, Ill.) fouled out along with Jasmyn Hardin (Cincinnati, Ohio), the Stars' second-leading scorer and leading rebounder on the year.
 
Dominican then staved off the Regents despite Rockford cutting the lead all the way down to two, 75-73, in the final ten seconds.
 
"We shot poorly in the first half but took care of the ball and played great defense," commented Gabby Johnson, the Stars' fourth-year head coach.  "In the second half we played poor defense and didn't take care of the ball but shot unreal.  Luckily Claudia DeNigris got hot and kept us in it but we need to take care of the ball."
 
The Stars, behind DeNigrils, shot near 44-percent from the field, 29-for-66, but turned the ball over 25 times, leading to 23 points off of turnovers, all in the second half, for Rockford.  Koraima Marroquin (Chicago, Ill.), Tapanes and Angela Evola (Marseilles, Ill.) all joined DeNigris in double-figures scoring with 12, 11 and 11 points respectively while Hardin, limited to just 18 minutes in foul trouble, pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds.
 
For Rockford, Mallorie Getzelman led the way with a game-high 29 points on 9-for-20 shooting from the field.
 
The Stars, now 3-13 on the year and 2-9 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC), travel up to Madison, Wisconsin, no Saturday to take on the Edgewood College Eagles.  Tipoff is slated for 4:15 p.m.