Box Score John Carroll crashed the boards, dove for loose balls, fought off picks and broke presses to stand toe-to-toe with defending Ohio Athletic Conference champion Mount Union Wednesday night at the DeCarlo Varsity Center. 

Trouble was, the required 40-minute effort it took to stand toe-to-toe extracted a hefty toll.

A furious comeback in the second half which whittled a double-digit Mount Union lead down to five points was undone by six scoreless minutes for the host Blue Streaks in a 69-55 setback to the #20 ranked Purple Raiders.

Box Score

The visitors never trailed at any point this evening, but John Carroll hung tight in the early going. When Hilary Liwosz dropped in a lay-up with 4:48 showing on the first half clock, she pulled the Blue Streaks to within a single point at 25-24.

Mount would roll toward the end of the half, scoring 12 of the final 18 points to take a 37-30 lead into the locker room.

Using seven points from Amanda Rose, the Purple Raiders burst out of the gate in the second half, and built a 47-31 advantage with 16:22 remaining. It was the largest lead of the night for Mount Union.

Just as JCU seemingly was losing grip of the game, their resiliency showed up in the form of a 17-6 run fuelded by six points apiece by Liwosz and Missy Spahar. When Beth Switzler drained a three at the 10:03 mark, the Blue Streaks were down by just five points at 53-48.

Then came the scoreless drought.

While Mount Union did not exactly run away from the Streaks, the damage was done. Emilee Ritchie buried a three-pointer to break the dry spell with 4:09 left to play to make the score 60-51, but the nine-point deficit was as close as John Carroll would get down the stretch.

Rosa LaMattina led all players with 18 points for Mount Union, which improved to 6-1 overall and 1-1 in the OAC. Rose added 17 points on 7-10 shooting from the field.

John Carroll, which dropped its third consecutive game, fell to 3-4 overall and 0-2 in league play. Ritchie (15 points) was joined in double figures by Liwosz with 11 and Spahar with ten.

Mount Union outrebounded John Carroll 44-27.