Women’s Basketball Come Up Short in Evenly Matched Contest at Emory

(ATLANTA Ga.) – The Carnegie Mellon University women's basketball team traveled south on Friday to play the Eagles of Emory University and dropped a 68-62 University Athletic Association (UAA) contest. Carnegie Mellon is now 9-4 overall and 1-1 in UAA play while Emory moves to 7-6, 1-1.

Carnegie Mellon finished the game shooting 44.6% from the floor, as Emory ended the game shooting 35.9%, but converted 19-of-22 from the foul line to the Tartans 10-of-13 effort. Sophomores Makayla Filiere (Chandler, Ariz./Hamilton) and Katharine Higgins (Montclair, N.J.) each tabbed 14 points in the setback while sophomore Laurel Pereira (Naperville, Ill./Naperville North) recorded 12 points. Filiere recorded a career-best eight steals. Junior Jenn Mayberger (Chesterfield, Mo./Cor Jesu Academy) handed out six assists and now needs five more assists to move into third all-time in program history. She currently has 294 for her career.

Ashley Oldshue led Emory with a game-high 28 points. She ended the game 8-of-12 from the floor and converted 12-of-14 from the charity stripe. She also hauled down a game-high 17 rebounds, as Emory held a 49-26 advantage on the boards. Azzairia Jackson-Sherrod ended with 14 points for the Eagles.

Emory started the game connecting on its first four shots and took an 8-0 lead two minutes into play. The Eagles grabbed their largest of the first frame at the midway mark at 14-4 and then held a 19-11 lead at the close of the first ten minutes. Carnegie Mellon shot 33.3% (5-15) from the floor while Emory shot 50.0% (8-16).

In an evenly matched second quarter, Carnegie Mellon cut the deficit to four points on three occasions with the last on a pair of free throws by Pereira with 49 seconds left in the quarter. Emory pushed its lead back to six as the buzzer sounded when Jackson-Sherrod connected on a 20-foot jumper to make the score 36-30 as the teams went into the locker room.

After the Eagles made the first shot of the third quarter, Carnegie Mellon rattled off seven straight to pull within a point at 38-37 with 7:18 to play. Emory held the lead throughout the rest of the quarter, never led by more than five points, and took a 54-50 lead into the final period. The Tartans shot 66.7% (8-12) from the floor in the third quarter while the Eagles shot 35.3% (6-17).

A jumper by Filiere at the 7:42 mark of the fourth quarter knotted the score at 56-56 and marked the first tie of the contest since the scoreboard read 0-0. Following a made foul shot by Emory's Oldshue, Higgins connected on a pair from the charity stripe to give Carnegie Mellon its first lead of the contest at 58-57 with 6:33 to play in regulation. From there, the lead changed hands three times and the score was tied on three other occasions over a five-minute span. Emory regained the lead (64-62) with 1:42 remaining on a pair of foul shots by Oldshue. The home team then sealed the 68-62 victory when Allison Chernow went 4-of-4 from the line in the closing seconds of the contest.

Carnegie Mellon will travel to seventh-ranked University on Rochester on Sunday, January 14 for a 2:00 p.m. tip.