Poor shooting stings Bruins in loss at St. Ambrose

DAVENPORT, Iowa -- The Bellevue University women's basketball team had no answer for Jaynee Prestegaard and Abby Wolter as the duo combined for 42 points to lead St. Ambrose University past the Bruins 69-64 in non-conference action on Saturday afternoon.

Bellevue sees their record level out at 6-6 with the loss while SAU improves to 6-4 with their fourth-straight victory.

Ross led the Bruins with 15 points to go along with seven boards and Scott joined her in double figures with 12 points and added six rebounds.

Bellevue shot just 34% from the floor as a team and turned in an uncharacteristic 6-for-29 shooting day from deep. St. Ambrose hit at a 42% clip for the game but also shot poorly from beyond the arc, finishing just 2-for-10.

St. Ambrose shot 32 free throws on the afternoon while Bellevue attempted just 17 shots from the charity stripe. Despite this, BU still had a chance in the final minute of the game.

Bellevue trailed by four but cut that deficit to two and a banked jumper by Faith Ross with 49.5 seconds to play. St. Ambrose got a bucket from Wolter at the other end to restore their lead and Prestegaard hit the first of two free throws a possession later, after a missed Bruin trey, to give the Fighting Bees a 67-62 advantage.

Asha Scott hit a jumper in the pain with 12.6 seconds on the clock but BU's last-gasp effort came up just short as Prestegaard got a good seal on the sideline inbounds pass and scored a layup with 11.2 seconds left to cap off the 69-64 victory.

A sluggish start saw the Bruins fall behind by as many as 10 points in the opening quarter. St. Ambrose grew their lead to 15 points, 30-15, with 6:04 left in the first half on a layup by Prestegaard.

Bellevue found some offense from there, running off eight-straight points including back-to-back threes from Taylor Dement and Delaney VanBlaricon to get back in the game. By halftime, BU again trailed by nine but found themselves playing better.

BU trailed by as many as 10 in the early minutes of the third quarter but battled back to within four points as Scott kicked off a 4-0 mini-run with a pair of free throws at the 5:50 mark. The Fighting Bees quickly got the lead back up to 10 but Ross hit three-pointer to pull the Bruins with seven, 47-40, headed into the fourth quarter.

Bellevue hits the road as the travel south along I-29 next Thursday, Dec. 15 for a 7 p.m. exhibition tip against NCAA Division I University of Missouri Kansas City.