MONROE—An unusual turn of events in the last fourteen seconds erased what looked like a McNeese women's basketball come from behind victory, turned out to be a 66-63 loss to Louisiana-Monroe Saturday.
 
The Cowgirls clawed their way back from an eight-point deficit using a full-court press and a 10-0 run to take a 57-56 lead with 2:55 to play.
 
After ULM retook the lead off two free throws, Allison Baggett hit a jumper in the lane and on the next play, McNeese's Alaina Verdin picked up a steal and scored a layup to give McNeese a 61-58 lead.
 
After ULM made two free throws to cut the McNeese lead to 63-62, McNeese called a timeout on the inbounds play trying to avoid the five-second call but McNeese was out of timeouts.  A technical foul was called on the Cowgirls and Chelsea Tieuel made both free throws to give ULM a 64-63 lead. 
 
To make matters worse, ULM retained the ball after the technical.  The Cowgirls fouled Tieuel again and once again she sank two free throws for a 66-63 ULM lead. McNeese had a chance to tie the game but Baggett's last second three pointer missed to the left as time expired.
 
"We are obviously really disappointed for the girls at the way the game ended," said head coach Brooks Williams. "They battled hard today and we are proud of that. Hats off to ULM, I thought they were extremely prepared and played with a lot of fight. We will learn from today, grow from it and continued to get prepared for Southland Conference play.
 
After coming off a season-high 26 points against Centenary, Baggett tied her career high today with 31 points with 20 coming in the second half.  Baggett ended the game 12 of 29 from the field and was perfect from the free throw line, making all six attempts. Jayln Johnson chipped in 12 points and dished out a season-high six assists.
 
The Cowgirls outrebounded the Warhawks 37-30 but turned the ball over 18 times and weren't able to contain ULM's leading scorer, Sharnice Brooks who led ULM with 20 points. Brooks also led the game with seven rebounds. Tieuel joined brooks in double figures with 15 points. Tieuel scored 10 of her points from the charity stripe. Alayshia Hunter chipped in 12 points and was credited with six blocks.
 
McNeese began the game with a suffocating defense and held UL-Monroe to a 21.4 field goal shooting percent while shooting 50.0 percent in the first nine minutes of the game.  The Cowgirls held the lead for all but one minute in the first half and trailed 29-26 at the half.