ROCKFORD, Ill.- Looking to continue their strong play at home the Rockford University women's basketball team hosted Aurora University Tuesday night. Rockford is 6-3 at home this season, which includes a win against the conferences third place team MSOE last Saturday. Aurora came into the game with an 8-6 record in conference, right above the Regents in the standings.
Rockford started a bit slow on offense and Aurora was able to get out to an early 10-5 lead six minutes into the game. Coming off the bench, Katie Clark (Rock City, Ill./Dakota) scored six quick points and after Lauren Hyser (Belvidere, Ill./Belvidere) made a jump shot the Regents were within four points with ten minutes left in the half. After a couple of defensive stands by both teams Arielle Nichols (Tampa, Fla./Land O'Lakes) made a three-pointer to get the Regents within one and on their next possession Diamond Williams (Carpentersville, Ill./Dundee-Crown) made a layup for the Regents first lead of the game. A layup by Lindsay Lengjak (Roscoe, Ill./Hononegah) at the 4:24 mark pushed the score to 24-19 in favor of Rockford. Aurora would go on a 6-2 run to end the half with the score 26-25 Rockford.
Jessica Bjerning (Wauconda, Ill./Mundelein) made a jump shot to give the Regents a 35-27 lead five minutes into the second half. Lengjak accounted for five of the Regents points in that span. Aurora fought back and cut the Regents lead down to two with 12:20 left in the game. At the 6:17 mark the Spartans made two free throws to tie the game up at 41. After a layup at the 4:18 mark Aurora took their first lead of the second half. The Spartans would increase their lead to five after making a layup with 2:56 left in the game. A few possessions later Nichols made a jump shot to cut Aurora's lead down to three. With just under a minute left Callie Rezin (Rockford, Ill./Lutheran) made a jump shot to put the score at 49-47 in favor of Aurora. Rockford immediately forced a turnover. Nichols was fouled and she made both free throw shots to tie the game up. Aurora took control of the ball with 28 seconds left and took the clock down to eight seconds before making a jump shot. With 4.6 seconds left the Regents called a timeout to set up their final play. Rezin found Nichols in the corner for a three-pointer but the final shot of the game for Rockford was blocked.
Rockford continues play on February 8th when they travel to play Edgewood at 4:15 p.m. Their next home game is on February 12th at 7:00 p.m. against Alverno.
