The University of Redlands women's basketball team stumbled to the visiting Panthers of Chapman University by a score of 66-71 on Tuesday night in Currier Gym, halting the Bulldogs' recent winning streak to five games.  Ironically, the Maroon and Gray's previous loss also came at the hands of the Panthers back on January 17 in Orange.

Revealing a pair of bright spots in the defeat, junior guard Colleen Goeser(San Carlos, CA) fired off her second 24-point effort in the last three games and junior Madison Sanders-Curry (San Jose, CA) pulled in a career-high 15 rebounds.

During Tuesday's contest, Redlands jumped out to its largest lead of the game at 10-5 with 16:29 remaining, after junior guard Marika Staton (El Centro, CA) knocked down a three-pointer and junior forward Brittany Oster (Agoura Hills, CA) hit a jumper.

However, the Panthers quickly recovered to even the score at 15 apiece.  This was the first of 16 tie scores in the game.

The final equal score of the first half came at 27 all on a Goeser bucket with 4:48 remaining.

Freshman forward Sandra Gao (Rowland Heights, CA) and sophomore guard Nicole Moy (Morton Grove, IL) provided consecutive scores for Chapman, before Redlands' gained three free-throws in the final two minutes of the period.

The Panthers held a slight 31-30 advantage at the break.

This back-and-forth battle continued into the second stanza.  The Bulldogs gained a slight edge at 40-37 when Goeser successfully drove the basket with 15:49 left on the clock.

This advantage was short-lived as Chapman quickly responded with a scoring spurt of its own.  At 11:23, the Panthers took a three-point lead when junior guard Kimi Takaoka (Arcadia, CA) knocked down a jumper.

Less than four minutes later, the momentum appeared to shift in favor of the Maroon and Gray when senior guard Allison Wong (Redding, CA) converted a shot from downtown on an assist from Oster, making it 53-49 for the Bulldogs.

Nonetheless, Chapman refused to go away and surged out to a 63-57 lead after Takaoka hit a three-ball.

The teams traded punches down the stretch until the Panthers broke a 65-65 tie at the 2:27-mark with a 6-1 run to close out the game. 

The difference simply came down to offense, as Redlands shot a less-than-stellar 31.1% on the night, compared to the efficient 44.8% performance by the Panthers.  The Bulldogs gained a slight advantage at the charity stripe, converting 25 of their 28 opportunities, while Chapman was 17-for-24 at the line.

Besides Goeser's 24 points, the Bulldogs gained 18 from Staton.

Four of Chapman's starting five produced double-digit scoring, with senior guard Emily McCoy (Villa Park, CA) leading the charge with 22 points.

Led by Sanders-Curry, the Maroon and Gray dominated the boards with a 49-to-31 margin, including 12 more on the offensive end.  Oster and Goeser pulled in seven apiece.

With tonight's result, the Bulldogs slip into fourth place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) standings with four games to go.  Both Chapman and Redlands are vying for a spot in the SCIAC Postseason Tournament, which includes the top four teams of the regular season.

Redlands (15-6, 8-4 SCIAC) faces a busy week, hosting Caltech on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. before taking on second-place Occidental College on Saturday for Senior Night at 5 p.m.