A stout defensive effort over the final three quarters lifted the University of Rochester women's basketball team to a 57-53 win over #4/#7 ranked New York University on Friday night at the Louis Alexander Palestra.

Rochester (12-5, 4-2 UAA) rallied from as many as 15 points down in the second quarter to hand NYU (14-1, 5-1 UAA) its first loss of the season. The Violets entered Friday's matchup ranked 4th in the latest WBCA Division III poll and 7th in the D3hoops.com poll.

Overall, in the final three quarters of the game, NYU was held to under 25% shooting from the floor, making just 13 of 53 shots thanks to the swarming Yellowjacket defense. UR also forced 15 turnovers, finished with nine steals and nine blocked shots.

Rochester meanwhile, improved every quarter in points scored and shooting percentage. UR finished the game at just 35.6%, but shot 44.8% during the second half of the contest. Also, the 'Jackets ended with a 47-40 advantage on the boards, which proved critical down the stretch.

The defensive effort by Rochester saw the Yellowjackets hold NYU to 30 points below its season average of 83 points per game, with the field goal percentage total being the Violets lowest of the season by over 13 percent.

Alexis Sestric paced Rochester with 16 points off the bench, going 6-for-9 from the field. She made one of UR's two 3-pointers in the game and was 3-for-4 from the free throw line. Hannah Lindemuth ended with 13 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Julianna Okoniewski scored just six points, but was tough inside, finishing with 12 rebounds and a career-high six blocked shots.

NYU's leading scorer was Jordan Janowski who recorded a career-high 20 points in the loss.She added six rebounds and was 9-for-19 from the field. Natalie Bruns added 6 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks for the Violets.

The first quarter saw NYU jump out to a 20-9 advantage following a 50% shooting performance over the opening ten minutes. UR meanwhile was just 4-for-16 in that span, leading to the double-digit deficit.

Two baskets by Jenny Walker pushed the Violet lead to a game-high 15 with 8:14 remaining in the first half, and it looked like NYU would keep its perfect season going.

Through the rest of the quarter, Rochester held NYU just 2-of-16 shooting in a 12-4 run which closed the gap to 28-21 at halftime. Lindemuth and Callie McCulley each had four points in the run, as UR looked to carry that momentum over to the second half.

UR kept chipping away during the third quarter. Charlotte Adler scored back-to-back buckets for Rochester to cut the lead to 30-25 with 6:14 left.

The lead was trimmed to four following a 3-pointer from Abby Gress with 3:30 left in the third. Okoniewski sank a layup with 40 seconds on the clock to make the deficit just three at 40-37 entering the fourth quarter.

Belle Pellecchia made a layup to push NYU's lead back to five to start the fourth quarter, but Rochester rattled off a 9-0 run to take its first lead since 4-2 early in the first quarter after a Sestric 3-pointer with 6:22 left.

Sestric finished the run with a tough layup inside and Rochester was up 46-42 with just under six minutes to play.

Janowski stopped the run on NYU's next possession with 5:25 on the clock.

The teams traded points to stay two points apart over the next few possessions, but the Yellowjackets stiffened on defense following the Lindemuth jumper with 2:20 left put the home team up by four 52-48.

Rochester got three straight stops, which killed nearly two minutes off the clock and Lindemuth was fouled and sank both free throws to go up six with 38 seconds on the clock.

NYU stepped out of bounds on its next possession and followed with another foul to send Sestric to the line. She sank the first but missed the second and NYU's Bruns was fouled on the rebound, allowing two points to be scored with essentially no time coming off the clock.

After a UR missed layup, Pellecchia hit a huge 3-pointer with just 15 seconds left to trim the lead to two again.

Both teams took their final time outs, with Rochester successfully getting the ball inbounds to Maura Leverone who was fouled and sank the two free throws in the final ten seconds to seal the win.

After the Rochester victory Friday, the all-time series between the schools is evened up at 36-36 across the 72 meetings. The teams will break that tie next Friday night as this coming week is turnaround week in the UAA conference schedule.

Frist, the Yellowjackets play host to Brandeis University on Sunday afternoon in the Palestra. Game time is set for 1 pm following the UR men's contest.