BOX SCORE
NORTH MANCHESTER, IND. -- Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology rallied from an eight-point second half deficit to defeat Manchester University 39-34 in women's basketball action on Wednesday night.
The Fightin' Engineers outscored Manchester 17-4 over the final 7:57 of the game and held the Spartans without a field goal for over seven minutes to earn the victory.
Freshman Addie Johnson (Caledonia, Mich./Catholic Central) led all scorers with 12 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore Sheree Williams (Bluffton, S.C.) pitched in with nine points.
Junior Kelsey Ploof (Noblesville) contributed six points and 16 rebounds to the effort. Freshman Cassidy Cain (Noblesville) and sophomore Gracie Gibbs (Parker, Colo./Ponderosa) also scored six points each.
Rose-Hulman held Manchester without a double figure scorer in the victory. Hannah Field and Janelle Moss led the Spartans with eight points each.
Manchester earned a 30-22 adantage on a three-pointer by Dani Rettig at the 7:57 mark of the second half. The Fightin' Engineer defense stepped up, and Rose-Hulman tied the score at 30-30 with 3:25 left after four points each by Gibbs and Johnson.
After Rose-Hulman forced a Manchester turnover, Johnson scored on a conventional three-point play at the 2:39 mark to give the Engineers a 33-30 lead. Jamie Childress brought the Spartans within 33-31 on a free throw, but two charity stripe tosses by Cain and Johnson gave Rose-Hulman a 37-31 lead at the 19-second mark.
Field buried a three-pointer with 4.8 seonds left, but Cain iced the game for the Engineers with two free throws at the two-second mark.
Rose-Hulman improved to 8-10 on the season and 4-7 in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference play, while Manchester dropped to 7-11 and 6-5 in conference games. The Fightin' Engineers host Mount St. Joseph in the annual Breast Cancer Awareness Day Game on Saturday at 1.