MORRIS, Minn. – The University of Minnesota Morris women's basketball team had a nice start to the contest, but were unable to hold the lead in the second half as the University of Wisconsin-River Falls rallied for a 47-37 win on James Gremmels Court. The Cougars slip to 1-3 on the season.

The game started about as well as Minnesota Morris could have hoped. After winning the opening tap, Maddy Grove connected on a tough floater and Jadyn Sondrol drilled a three following a UW-River Falls turnover to make it 5-0 after a minute. Reece Wassink came off the bench for four points later in the first quarter as the Cougars led, 13-7, through 10 minutes.

A Wassink layup to open the second quarter pushed the Minnesota Morris lead to eight points, 15-7. Late in the first half, Lexus Redthunder hit a jumper to stake the Cougars to a 23-16 halftime advantage.

Zoey Buchon led the comeback for UW-River Falls in the second half. Scoring 10 points by herself in the third quarter, Buchon and the Falcons rallied to within two, 32-30, as the final quarter began. 

Neither team scored in the first minute of the fourth quarter until a Macy Nilsen triple at the 8:44 mark gave UW-River Falls its first lead of the night. The Falcons ended up with a 14-0 run stretching back to the end of the third quarter, gaining a 42-32 lead as the clock ticked under four minutes. Grove finally broke the drought for the Cougars by scoring on a putback, but UW-River Falls got the lead back to double-digits with two minutes to go and it never wavered from there.

Grove finished with a team-high 10 points. Wassink added eight and Redthunder chipped in with seven. Despite early foul trouble, Malory Anderson finished with nine boards, while Jay Kwateh dished four assists.

Minnesota Morris travels to NCAA Division II opponent Bemidji State University on Saturday for a 2 p.m. tip-off.