Box Score

NAMPA, Idaho – As tough of defense as the Crusaders played, Thursday night came down to the Saints and their defense.

Saint Martin's forced 25 turnovers, made 15 steals and held the Northwest Nazarene women to 35.1 percent shooting (20-of-57), which proved to be just enough to escape the Johnson Sports Center on the NNU campus with a 59-50, Great Northwest Athletic Conference road win over the Crusaders.

"Saint Martin's disruptive defense caused us problems and they lived up to being the best defensive team in the conference," NNU coach Ryan Bragdon said.

Still, NNU's defense played stingy, too, giving the Crusaders (14-11 overall, 7-10 GNAC) a chance to pull out the win.

NNU forced 25 turnovers as well, and outrebounded the Saints, 37-29, but without getting timely buckets at the other end, the Crusaders defensive efforts went for naught.

"Defensively our effort was pretty solid and did keep it close enough," Bragdon said.

Early on, the Crusaders overcame the Saints defense and held a 7-2 lead after a Megan Hingston 3-point play, and led 11-10 on a Katie Swanson bucket with 8 minutes, 31 seconds gone.

But a 10-0 run by the Saints (16-10, 10-7) gave them the lead for good, though NNU put up plenty of fights.

NNU closed to 24-19 back on a Hingston bucket with 4:57 left until halftime, and to 42-37 down on a Kylee Schierman putback with 13:15 left in the game, but never managed to chip any more off SMU's lead.

A Chelsea Haskey jumper from the left elbow with 6:23 to go pushed the lead back up to 10 points at 55-45, and the Crusaders simply couldn't crack the Saints defense enough times to complete a comeback.

"We just had a rough shooting night again," Bragdon said, adding, "and they just did a good job of taking away our penetration lanes.

"We had open looks and they just didn't fall," NNU's coach added.

Hingston led the way for NNU, the lone Crusader in double digits as she scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds.

Chelsie Luke added nine points and seven steals in the defensive tussle and Schierman had six points and eight boards for the Crusaders, who return to action Saturday hosting Western Oregon at 5:15 p.m. for "Senior Night."

Haskey led all scorers with 20 points for St. Martin's.