By Tim Stried
December 16, 2002

Bluffton College took a 36-25 lead early in the second half and held off a late Lake Erie College rally to take a 53-52 win over the Storm on the road Monday night.

Senior Melissa James led Bluffton with 14 points and senior Lyndsey Robinson grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds to lead the Beavers to their first win of the season, which ends a 33-game losing streak and gives first-year head coach Amanda Curtis her first career victory.

BC is now 1-7 overall and will have an 11-day break before traveling to the Notre Dame of Ohio Holiday Tournament Dec. 27 and 28. Lake Erie falls to 1-6.

Bluffton jumped out to a 12-3 lead with 10:32 left in the first half but Lake Erie came back to take a 17-14 lead five minutes later. Bluffton regained the lead at halftime 21-20 and opened the second half with a 15-5 run to take a 36-25 lead early in the second half.

That would be Bluffton's largest lead of the game as the Storm scored the game's next nine points to trail 36-34 with 11:02 remaining. BC led 47-41 with under a minute to play but LEC hit a 3-pointer with 36 seconds left to cut the lead to 47-44. Robinson and junior Karen Harris hit free throws in the closing seconds to give BC a 53-49 lead as the clock ran out, but not before Lake Erie hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to narrow the final margin to one point.

Bluffton out-rebounded LEC 49-32, which marks a new season rebounding high, and committed a season-low 15 turnovers. Bluffton's 16 assists is a new season high, with seven of those coming from senior Paula Fry to give her a new career high. Fry also tied a career high with six rebounds.

Sophomore Cara Young tied her career high with 11 points and Harris chipped in 10.