HARRISONBURG, Va. – The Hilbert College women's basketball team struggled from the foul line tonight and suffered a 65-60 defeat in the opening game of the Eastern Mennonite Tip-Off Classic. 

Emily Gawlak earned her first career double-double leading with 10 rebounds and 12 points while three other teammates reached double figure points.

Taylor Corts and Kelsi Ebert each led with 13 points, Ebert going 5-of-7 at the foul line and earning game-high honors with seven assists.

Alayna DeFazio went 3-for-5 from deep and secured her career-high scoring performance when she chipped in 11 points in 29 minutes.

The Hawks defensive pressure forced 21 Royal's turnovers but they converted those turnovers into only 11 points.

The Royal held an 18-13 first quarter lead but the Hawks fought back outscoring the hosts 20-17 in the second period, but still trailed 35-33 by intermission.

Hilbert forced a 50-50 tie just 54-seconds into the fourth quarter and Ebert knocked down a pair of free throws which gave the Hawks their first lead of the night.  The senior later converted a three-point play to cap an 11-2 run which gave Hilbert a 55-50 lead with just over seven minutes left in the final quarter.

Each team traded buckets until it was 59-59, then EMU's defense shut the Hawks down holding them to only one point in the final 3:30 of the game.

Hilbert finished the game hitting 34.4% from the field with a 7-for-23 performance beyond the arc.  The 11-for-22 (50%) free throw effort eventually hurt the Hawks.

EMU scored 42 points in the paint, but only seven second-chance points.  They did find 20 points off Hilbert's 19 turnovers.

Hilbert (0-2) returns to the Yoder Arena tomorrow for a 1 pm game against Salem College who were 78-66 losers to Penn State Altoona in the first game of the Classic tonight.

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