Bethel
Tabor built a 19-11 lead with 7:36 left in the first half on a second-chance basket by Chelsea Malone, who had buried back-to-back 3-pointers leading up to the gritty score and tallied 12 points in the first half.
Stacie Herman finished the half with 11 points, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 3:38 to go, a tie-breaking 2-pointer with 1:58 left and another 2-point shot good for a 28-24 Tabor lead with 1:08.
But Bethel finished the half on a 7-2 run and the Threshers took a 31-30 advantage into intermission.
A layup by Brittany Roth restored Tabor?s lead 1:01 into the second half, and the Bluejays opened the gap to 45-40.
A 9-0 Bethel run followed, leaving the Bluejays playing catchup most of the rest of the way.
Malone gave Tabor a 50-49 lead at 9:47, and back-to-back baskets by Joanna Pyle?the second of which turned into a traditional 3-point play at 6:13?gave Tabor a short-lived 58-54 lead.
Bethel knotted the score at 58 and 62 before seizing the lead for good with 1:01 left.
A triple by Angela Wood with 17 seconds remaining provided the decisive score for Bethel.
Not counting two throws after Woods? 3-pointer, Bethel shot 21-for-30 at the foul line. The Blue?jays went 12-for-20 from the stripe.
Herman scored 23 points in all, and Malone finished with 18.
Southwestern
Behind 20 points from Stacie Herman, a dozen from Joanna Pyle and 10 from Jordan Crosson, the Bluejays overcame a nine-point deficit and grabbed the lead for good with 3:08 left in the first half.
Jenny Gaskell scored point-blank baskets 56 seconds apart to spark the pivotal run, and Herman lit it up from the field.
Herman?s 3-pointer set up by Pyle at 5:11 made it 22-21, Tabor, and Herman scored three 2-point shots before the halftime buzzer.
Leading 30-26, Tabor blew it open quickly after intermission, and kept it a multiple-possession game for all but 27 seconds of the second half.
A 2-pointer by Chelsea Malone got things rolling 14 seconds out of intermission, and the women rolled their lead up to 40-33 on four consecutive free throws by Brittany Roth, who nailed one pair at 15:30 and another at 15:01.
Southwestern rallied to trim it to 44-42, but Tabor put together an 11-0 run to obtain it biggest lead of the night, 55-42.
With just over three minutes to go, Southwestern conceded it could not stop the Bluejay offense, opting to foul and applying marginally effective full-court pressure instead.
The gambit allowed the Moundbuilders to close the gap to 63-57 with 1:02 to go, and coach Shawn Winter had seen enough.
After a timeout, Malone ran the baseline like a quarterback rolling out of the pocket, then fired a home-run pass over the top of the defense.
Pyle grabbed it on one hop in the Bluejays lane and scooped it in, drawing a foul from the beaten defender in the process. She added the free throw with 1:01 seconds to go.
Pyle wrapped it up with two foul shots with 32 seconds left.
Coming?Tabor (10-6) wraps up its regular season schedule against conference leader Sterling (15-1) at home Thurdsay and Kansas Wesleyan (8-8) on the road Saturday.