Hardy, Eagles outrun Aurora

In a game of runs, Benedictine University had the last and came away with a big Northern Athletics Conference upset victory Wednesday.

After giving up all but 4 points of a 19-point second-half lead, the Eagles won the stretch drive 11-4 and defeated visiting Aurora University 64-53 in women's basketball.

After Blair Ericson made a pair of free throws, Tiffany Hardy calmly sank a 3-pointer to give the Eagles (5-9, 3-5) the breathing room they needed for the win.

"Coming out of the timeout, assistant coach Dana Sullivan told me to relax," Hardy said. "She said 'You're a good shooter, you can hit the big shot.' That gave me more confidence and I hit the shot. This was a big win for us. It shows that we're a good team and we have the potential to win big games."

Hardy, who had three other 3-pointers on the night, led the Eagles with 19 points, and teammate Tamika Curtis, who was double- and triple-teamed all night, finished with 15 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.

Her 10th rebound of the game was No. 1,000 in her Benedictine career.

"I never know when those milestones are coming," Curtis said. "So it was a good surprise. But it was also great that we were able to win. We need to finish games. And tonight we worked hard for 40 minutes, knocked down our shots and hit our free throws.

The Eagles were 16 of 17 from the free-throw line.

Leading 19-15 midway through the first half, the Eagles went on a 12-0 run and built a 37-23 halftime lead.

Benedictine hit six 3-pointers in the first half.

After the Eagles scored the first 5 points of the second half, the Spartans (7-8, 5-3) increased the full-court pressure and forced the Eagles into numerous ballhandling mistakes and rushed shots.

The Spartans outscored Benedictine 26-11 during that stretch and reduced the lead to 53-49.

"They did a good job of getting us out of what we wanted to do," said Benedictine coach Paul Nelson. "We've had several losses recently after we were leading late in the game. But we made a little run of our own at the end and we made some key defensive stops when we needed to. And hitting our free throws was huge."

Transfer Laketa Simpson, who became eligible at the semester break, finished with 10 points and 7 rebounds and Monica Krozel pulled down 10 boards for the Eagles, 6 off the offensive glass.

Meagan Re was Aurora's top scorer with 16 points, and Kisha Miller scored 10.

"We wanted to speed up the game because our half-court defense wasn't working well in the first half," said Aurora coach Michelle Roof. "We wanted to force them into quick shots and we did a great job of that. We got them playing at the tempo we wanted, but then the game slowed down and they came back and kept the lead."