The Dominican University women's basketball team returned to the court on Saturday after an 11-day break, falling to the Benedictine University Eagles, 68-61 in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) action.  The loss drops the Stars to 5-5 on the season and 1-4 in league play.
 
The Eagles led by as many as 14 in the fourth quarter before the Stars used a 10-2 run to angle the Benedictine lead back down to six, 58-52, with five minutes to play.  After a Benedictine bucket, Amari Stafford buried a three to bring Dominican within five, 60-55, with 4:07 to go but the Stars could not get any closer.

"There are two takeways from tonight's game," said Gabby Johnson, the Stars' head coach. "We have to figure out how to get the kid off the basket on our free throws and our team is growing every day. Today we lost on the boards and we have to find a way to get the defensive rebounds, especially when the game is tight. A coach's worst nightmare is offensive boards on free throws and we gave them four at the end of the game." 

Timiya Ray led the way for the Stars with her fifth double-double of the season, scoring 19 points and pulling down ten rebounds.  Freshman Alisha Markley added 11 points in 20 minutes of work.
 
For the Eagles, D'Asia Williams led the way with a game-high 21 points on 8-for-11 shooting.  Georgia Alexakos added 13 points in the winning effort.

"Time to take the positives with us into Tuesday," said Johnson.
 
Dominican will return home to host the Concordia University Chicago Cougars on Tuesday night at the Igini Sports Forum.  Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.