Salisbury, NC – Lincoln Memorial women's basketball gets handed their first loss of the season as they fall to Catawba 54-51 Saturday afternoon.

The Lady Railsplitters came out strong defensively in the first quarter, as they forced Catawba to seven turnovers compared to LMU's two. Despite the strong defensive efforts from Lincoln Memorial and Kamil Collier leading the team with seven points in the first, the game goes into the second quarter tied at 13-13.

The second quarter was a strong start for Catawba, as they put together a 11-5 run in the first three and a half minutes, which gave the Catawba Indians a strong lead for the remainder of the quarter. Even though there were five different scorers for LMU in the second, Catawba outscored the Lady Railsplitters 21-13 and had the advantage going into the third quarter 34-26.

The third was a low scoring quarter for both teams, as LMU scored seven points while Catawba added 12, and both teams going below 25% from the field. The score going into the fourth quarter was 46-33 with the Catawba Indians in the lead.

Lincoln Memorial brought the momentum back up in the fourth as they made it a four-point game with a minute remaining in the half, with an Alexa Smiddy reverse layup and a free throw making it a one-point game with eight seconds remaining. With the help of a pair of Catawba free throws, Catawba hands Lincoln Memorial their first loss of the season 54-51.

Kamil Collier recorded her third double-double of the season with team-leading 16 points and 17 rebounds. Smiddy also scored double-digits with 14 pints and team-high five assists, followed by Lexi Patty with nine points and 10 rebounds. Asia Barr added six points and two rebounds. Keiara Anderson and Maleiya Hill rounded out the scoring with three points each.

As a team, Lincoln Memorial went 31% from the field, 21.4% from the three, and 9/20 from the free-throw line.

The Lady Railsplitters out rebounded Catawba 42-40, scored two fast break points, 12 points off of Catawba turnovers, 20 points in the paint, 18 second chance points, and two points from the bench. Catawba had two more turnovers than LMU and Lincoln Memorial registered eight steals from those turnovers.

With the loss, Lincoln Memorial drops to 5-1 overall and 1-1 in conference play, while Catawba improves to 3-4 overall and 1-1 in the SAC.

The Lady Railsplitters will have three days to recover and bounce back as they face Mars Hill at home on Wednesday, December 10^th at 5:30 pm in Tex Turner Arena.