Garden City, N.Y. -- Behind a combined 43 points from Sierra Clark and Lauren Nuss, the Adelphi University women's basketball team edged out the visiting Penmen of Southern New Hampshire University, 72-68, inside the Center for Recreation and Sports on Saturday afternoon.

In the Panthers' third straight win, Clark put in a team-high 23 points off the bench while pulling down a team-high 10 rebounds for her second double-double of the season. Nuss chipped in a career-high 20 points in the effort, shooting 6-9 from behind the three-point arc to tie a school record and knocking down five triples in the second half.

Ashley Gomez and Samantha Brenner also totaled double figures for the Brown and Gold, scoring 13 and 10 respectively, while Julia Gnieser kept the offense running smoothly and dished out a team-high eight assists. Kylie Lorenzen tallied a game-high 29 in the setback for Southern New Hampshire (10-6, 4-6 NE-10), falling one rebound short of a double-double. 

After trailing 7-4 to open the contest, Brenner scored six of the next eight points for the Panthers to put them on top, 12-7 at the midway point of the first quarter. The Penmen pulled the score to within one, but Clark put in the next two buckets for the Panthers with under a minute to play to push the lead back to five, 16-11, at the end of the first period.

The second period was nearly a mirror of the first, as the Penmen outscored the Panthers by a slim 15-11 margin and put together a 13-4 scoring run over six minutes to turn a 20-13 deficit into a 26-24 lead. With the Brown and Gold holding for the last shot, Tara Flynn found Nuss on the wing and the senior knocked down her first three-pointer of the game as time expired to send Adelphi into the locker room up one, 27-26.

Neither team gained a foothold early in the third as the game featured three ties before Nuss found the shooting touch, knocking down three straight triples to anchor an 11-2 scoring run that put Adelphi up nine, 42-33, at the 4:43 mark. Adelphi's lead expanded to double figures, 46-36, as Gnieser knocked down a foul-line jumper with 3:15 remaining, before SNHU scored six of the final seven points of the period to slice the lead in half heading to the fourth. 

Nuss bookended a 10-6 scoring run for the Panthers with treys to tie the record, as Adelphi took a nine-point, 57-48 lead with 5:04 to play. The Penmen kept the pressure on, however, responding with a 15-4 scoring streak of their own to cut Adelphi's lead to two, 63-61, with just 1:14 to play, while continuing to trail by two with 32 seconds on the clock.

Despite the Penmen's best efforts on the offensive side, as they tallied five points in the final 11 seconds, they were forced to foul on the defensive end and Nuss, Gomez and Gnieser combined to go 6-7 at the line to secure the NE-10 victory.

The Panthers are back in action on Wednesday, January 20, when they welcome the Skyhawks of Stonehill College to the Center for Recreation and Sports in a 5:30 contest.

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About Adelphi University Athletics
Adelphi University joined the Northeast-10 Conference in the fall of 2009 and in the past six seasons has collected 16 regular season conference titles, 21 tournament championships, 27 individual crowns and captured the Northeast-10 President's Cup twice (2013 and 2014), while winning five NCAA Division II National Championships.

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