HELENA, Mont. – A back-and-forth battle wound up going the way of Carroll College in the final minutes as the Lewis-Clark State College women's basketball team fell 73-67 in Frontier Conference action Saturday afternoon.
 
"I feel bad for our players because they played hard and, honestly, we played well enough to win," LCSC coach Brian Orr said. "Unfortunately in the last few minutes, we had too many empty possessions on offense and we had a couple breakdowns defensively that were very costly."
 
The Warriors fell behind in the first few minutes before finding their rhythm and using a 22-10 run to take a 22-15 lead at the end of the first quarter. In the second quarter, Carroll ignited a comeback with a barrage of 3-pointers. By the half, the Saints had closed to 38-35.
 
That set the stage for the nail-biter that consumed the final two quarters. The Saints eked out five-point leads twice in the third quarter and the Warriors went up by four once, 63-59 with 4:07 to play, in the fourth. Other than that, three or fewer points were the difference until two Carroll free throws with 11 seconds in the game for the final six-point margin.
 
"We were much better in the first half and if we hadn't turned the ball over so much we could have  gone into the second half with a much bigger lead," Orr said. "It's been awhile since we lost back-to-back games and it's really disappointing, but we were a whole lot better tonight and the fact that it was the second game on the toughest road is encouraging."
 
Orr gave credit to the tenacity of his young team, especially since they were without scoring and emotional leader Lauren Johnson, who was out with injury.
 
"Our newbies showed a lot more determination and toughness tonight and we are hoping to grow as a team from this trip," Orr said. "Not trying to make excuses, but in this league there is very little margin for error and not having our leading scorer made this weekend's challenges even tougher. We are looking forward to her return."
 
In Johnson's absence, Peyton Souvenir, Jansen Edmiston and Hailey Turner each had 12 points with Jossilyn Blackman finishing with eight. The Warriors were much stronger on the boards than they were in Thursday's loss with Blackman's seven helping the Warriors to pull down 34 compared to 38 for the Saints. Souvenir and Turner also had three assists each.