FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville College women's basketball team suffered their first loss of the season on Tuesday night, falling to Farmingdale State 73-70 in overtime. With the loss, the Valiants drop to 8-1 on the season and 4-1 in Skyline Conference play.
 
For the third time in four games, Spencer Shore (Boca Raton, Fla./West Boca Raton) scored 20 points. Since setting her new career high on Nov. 28 against Cazenovia, Shore has been an offensive catalyst, averaging 19.0 points per game in the stretch and taking over the team lead with 14.1 points per game on the year. Faith Johnson-Desilvia (Riverhead, N.Y./Riverhead) scored 16 while Ali Mikaele (Silver Spring, Md./St. Andrew's Episcopal School) netted 15.
 
Mikaele had a season-high 14 rebounds in the effort to earn her first double-double of the season. Johnson-Desilvia also earned a double-double with 10 rebounds to go along with her 16 points, while Niyona Smith (Towson, MD/Concordia Prep) pulled down 11 rebounds, with nine coming off the offensive glass.
 
The 70 points was the lowest scoring output by Manhattanville this season, while the team's 30 percent shooting from the field was also a low for the year.
 
In a game that saw nine lead changes and 13 ties, momentum swung across both sides of the court throughout the contest. The Valiants opened the game with the first five points of the night after Shore connected from deep on her first shot and Johnson-Desilvia sunk a pair of free throws. The lead would stay with the visitors for the rest of the quarter as Manhattanville would go up by as much as eight and hold a 19-13 lead heading into the second.
 
The Rams began the new quarter with a 11-0 run over the first 2:40 to take their first lead of the contest. Farmingdale would build up to a double-digit lead, pulling ahead 33-23 with 4:42 left in the half. Facing their biggest deficit of the season, Manhattanville showed resiliency as the quarter came to an end. The Valiants went on a 14-2 run to close out the half to erase Farmingdale's lead and head into the locker room with a 37-35 advantage.
 
The contest would remain a one-possession game for a majority of the second half, with the lead never extending past four. Both teams matched each other shot for shot in the third, with the Rams' Mackenzie Tierney connecting on a layup in the final second to put Farmingdale up 49-48 heading into the final quarter of regulation. With less than three minutes remaining, Layla Mendoza's layup and a Samantha Muller free throw gave Farmingdale a 58-54 lead, the biggest advantage of the second half. A pair of layups from Johnson-Desilvia and Mikaele tied the game up with 51 seconds to play. Johnson-Desilvia would then steal the ball on Farmingdale's ensuing possession and driving to the basket to give Manhattanville a two point lead with 20 second remaining. After a timeout to draw up a play, the Rams tied the game up off a Mendoza layup and Johnson-Desilvia's buzzer beater attempt was off target, sending the game to overtime.
 
The Rams opened up the extra period with an 8-2 run through the first 2:30, putting the Valiants in a hole. As they had shown earlier in the game, the Valiants refused to go away quietly, responding with a 7-1 run over the following two minutes to tie the game back up off a Mikaele layup at 69-69 with 33 seconds remaining. Mendoza would draw a foul for Farmingdale and sink both free throw attempts and Manhattanville would turn the ball over on their next possession leading to Anna Zaborowska putting the game away with a layup with four seconds remaining.
 
Up Next
The Valiants look to start another winning streak when they return to action on Thursday, hosting Yeshiva at 7 p.m.

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