The Lake Forest College women's basketball team fell 61-57 to visiting St. Norbert College, the 25th-ranked team in the nation, Wednesday night. Sophomore guard Sam Schuring led the home team with a dozen points and was 4-for-4 from the foul line as the team set a single-game school record for free throw percentage.
The Foresters made 14 of 15 foul shots in the contest and their .933 free throw percentage is better than the prevoius mark of .926 (25 of 27) set by the 2001-02 team. Ironically, the free throw line was the only statistical category where St. Norbert had a significant edge as the visitors knocked down 27 of 33 attempts.
After Schuring, senior Emily Weber was next on Lake Forest with 10 points and the two guards combined for 11 rebounds. While sophomore forward Liz Radtke had the Foresters' only missed free throw of the game, she did score seven of her nine points from the charity stripe and added a career-high five steals. Senior forward Tabytha Harvey also scored nine points and was 4-for-5 from the field in just 11 minutes of play.
Lake Forest shot 38.5 percent from the field in the game and limited the Green Knights to just 30.6 percent shooting. The home team was 3-for-10 and St. Norbert 4-for-18 from three-point range. The visitors had a slight 34-33 edge in rebounds and committed 19 turnovers, one fewer than the Foresters.
St. Norbert led by as many as six points early in the game before a 16-0 Forester run put the home team ahead 23-13. The Knights then scored 16 of the game's next 18 points to take a 29-25 advantage. A Lake Forest free throw and three-pointer tied the score but two free throws with 2.5 seconds on the clock gave St. Norbert a 31-29 halftime lead.
The score was tied five times early in the second half before the Foresters gained the advantage. They eventually extended their lead to six points with 9:32 to play on freshman Gina Ambrose's second three-pointer of the night. St. Norbert, however, came back and used a 7-0 run to turn a 50-46 deficit into a 53-50 lead with three-and-a-half minutes left. Trailing by two, Harvey converted a traditional three-point play with 1:14 remaining to put the Foresters back on top. The Knights responded with a three-point play of their own 19 seconds later and made four of six free throws in the final 30 seconds to help preserve the victory.