ASHLAND, Va.- The Randolph women's basketball traveled to Randolph-Macon for its final regular season road game of the year on Saturday. The WildCats fought back after trailing early but dropped a 54-44 decision to the Yellow Jackets.

Randolph's overall record now stands at 17-7 and 11-6 in the conference. Randolph-Macon improves to 17-6 and 13-3 in the ODAC.

With one game remaining, the WildCats sit in sixth place in the standings. The Yellow Jackets are in second place.

Randolph-Macon led 8-0 before the WildCats recorded their first basket and were up 14-4 at the end of the first quarter. In the second period, the 'Cats cut into the 'Jacket lead with a 6-2 run to trail 16-10 but RM-C's 9-1 run gave the home team a 25-11 lead with 2:20 remaining. Randolph trailed 25-14 at halftime.

In the third quarter, the Yellow Jackets led by as much as 23 points, 43-20, with under four minutes remaining in the period. Randolph cut it to 17 points at the end of the quarter. The WildCats were behind 54-36 with 3:06 left in the fourth quarter before ending the game on an 8-0 run to make the final score 54-44.

Randolph was 17-of-48 (35.4%) overall and just 2-of-26 (12.5%) from behind the three-point arc. Randolph-Macon shot 21-of-53 (39.6%) overall and 4-of-17 (23.5%) in three -point attempts.

The Yellow Jackets controlled the glass 37-29. Randolph did lead in points in the paint 28-20.

"ODAC Conference road games are are tough and we faced a team that came out with much better focus & energy especially in the 1st quarter," said head coach Steve Lanpher.  That's on me !" 
 

Yanessa Cabrera (Manassas, Va./Stonewall Jackson) led in scoring with 11 points. Kylie Stark (Lynchburg, Va./Brookville) added eight points, five rebounds and two steals. Teniyah Crenshaw-Patterson (Newport News, Va./Heritage) chipped in eight points. Natalie Clark (Chesapeake, Va./Indian River) also scored eight points and came away with four steals.

"Defensively Macon did a good job keeping us out of the paint and I thought we settled for perimeter shots way too often," noted Lanpher. We defended well at times but we gave up way too many 2nd shot opportunities. I thought Yanessa played a strong floor game and we got us good minutes again off the bench from Natalie."

Randolph concludes the regular season next Saturday as it hosts Eastern Mennonite. Game time from Giles Gymnasium will be at 2:00 p.m.