ONEONTA, NY – Hartwick's women's basketball team erased a 12-point deficit with less than 17 minutes to play and emerged with a 59-49 home victory over visiting St. John Fisher on Friday night at Lambros Arena. The Hawks closed out the game on a 32-10 run and improved to 12-3 overall and 4-1 in the Empire 8. With the victory, the Hawks earn just their 9^th win in program history over the Cardinals and maintain their second-place tie with Stevens in the conference standings.
            Hartwick was led by sophomore Kate Purcell (Buffalo, NY/Mount Mercy Academy), who led all scorers with 17 points. She added a game-high five steals, five rebounds, and two assists. Senior center Samantha Fox (Hartwick, NY/Cooperstown) contributed her third double-double in a Hartwick uniform with a career-high 14 points and 10 rebounds. She also blocked three Cardinal shots.
            St. John Fisher gained the upper in the first half of play thanks to an 11-2 run over a three-minute span. The Cardinals made five of their six shots in the span.
            The lead grew to as many as 12 points, 30-18, with 3:03 left in the stanza after a pair of Meghan Soja free throws. Hartwick would cut the deficit in half with a three-point play from sophomore forward Katrina Caulfield (Palmer, MA/Palmer) and a trey from freshman guard Josefine Vincents (Vallensbak, Denmark/Kent School) and the Hawks trailed 30-24 at the break.
            The Hawks made just 26.5% of their shots from the field as a team in the half. They also made only 3-of-8 from the free-throw line after hitting all 16 of their attempts last Saturday versus Utica.
            In the second half, the Hawks turned up the pressure, forcing the Cardinals into 13 turnovers and 24% shooting. A Camryn Buckner layup with 16:42 remaining gave the visitors a 39-27 edge, but consecutive buckets from Fox shaved the Cardinals' lead to eight points. With the score 42-34, Fox then sank a pair from the free-throw line and hit a jumper in 58 seconds to make it a four-point game, 42-38.
            Following a three-pointer from Purcell and a Fox basket that gave the Hawks a brief lead, Portia Velasco answered for Fisher to regain the advantage, 44-43. On the next trip down the floor, however, sophomore Kate Veit (Easthampton, MA/Holyoke Catholic) hit a three-pointer for her only points of the night to put the Hawks up to stay with 10:17 showing on the clock.
            With the score 46-44 Hartwick's favor, neither team managed a point over the next four minutes of action. Caulfield hit a long jumper from the corner with roughly six minutes left and Purcell made a layup to push Hartwick's edge to six before Velasco answered with a jumper.
            Nearly four minutes passed again before Fox sank her final basket of the game with 1:39 left which triggered a 9-3 run to end the game for Hartwick.
            The Hawks finished the game forcing 20 Fisher turnovers which they turned into 31 points. They also registered 14 steals and dished out 13 assists.
            Hartwick shot 31.1% from the floor for the game. The Cardinals shot 29.8% and held the edge in rebounding, 47-42.
            Fisher was led by Buckner's 14 points and game-high 14 rebounds. Velasco added 13 points. Soja finished with nine points and seven rebounds.
            Fox ended her night 6-of-11 from the floor. Vincents finished with six points, three boards, and three steals, and Caulfield added five points and five rebounds.
            Maria Foglia (Rensselaer, NY/Catholic Central) scored eight points for the Hawks to go along with five rebounds. Lee Arduini (Albany, NY/Academy of the Holy Names) came away with three steals.
            Hartwick returns to action Saturday afternoon as it hosts Nazareth (9-6, 2-3 E8) at 2 p.m. The Golden Flyers dropped a 47-43 decision to Stevens earlier tonight.