BILLINGS, Mont. – The Raven Women's Basketball team made a fourth-quarter run on Friday that pulled Benedictine (24-9) within a point, 78-77, of Menlo (Calif.) College.
Despite the run, that helped erase as much as a 15-point deficit, the Ravens comeback effort was held off by the Oaks who limited Benedictine to just one point over the final 3:10 of the game to end Benedictine's season with a 88-78 loss.
Menlo (23-8) connected on 70 percent from the floor, 75 percent from beyond the 3-point arc and 70 percent at the free throw line in the fourth quarter to hold off Benedictine's comeback effort.
Raven guard Brynn Maul scored nearly half of her career high 31 point in the fourth quarter. She finished the quarter scoring 15 points wth three 3-pointers and a 4-of-4 effort at the free throw line.
Benedictine held a three-point lead, 21-18, at the of the first quarter. The Ravens overcome a slow start to the game from the floor but getting to the free throw line where they went 10 of 12.
In the second quarter, the Oaks turned to Destinee Bowie in the paint. She scored eight points and helped close down the paint defensively as Menlo outscored Benedictine 18-12 to take a 36-33 lead into halftime.
The Ravens tied the game out of the gate in the second half on a 3-pointer from Jordan Closter, but they couldn't break through to regain the lead. The Ravens converted another three 3-pointer while they connected on 62.5 percent from the floor over the rest of the third quarter, but just couldn't grab the lead as they trailed 64-58 headed in to the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter started out with the Oaks going on a 11-2 run to turn their six-point lead at the break into their largest lead of the game, 15, with 6:47 left to play. From there, Maul went on a run of her own outscoring the Oaks 15-3 before Kayla Staley capped off a 17-3 run that pulled Benedictine within one point with 3:10 left to play.
Menlo's Celina Pagan scored the final seven points of the game for the Oaks as they held the Ravens to just a Kristen Murphy free throw with 18 seconds remaining to earn the 10-point win.
Murphy added 17 points to go with Maul's game-high 31 points while Staley finished with 12. The Ravens finished with a 20-18 advantage off turnovers but the Oaks held the advantage in the paint, 28-26, and on second chance points, 12-7.
