BEAVER FALLS, Pa. – The Geneva College women's basketball team hosted Washington & Jefferson on Saturday afternoon, with the Presidents coming into the game as one of the co-favorites in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC), and it showed for most of the game.  W&J built a 23-point third quarter lead before Geneva rallied all the way back to tie the game, but the Presidents pulled away at the end for a 67-59 win.  W&J improved to 3-5, 1-1 in the PAC, while Geneva fell to 1-4, 0-2 in the PAC.

Geneva scored the first four points of the game to get off to a good start.  At that point W&J began to employ a full court press, and the Golden Tornadoes struggled against it, committing ten turnovers in the first quarter, which the Presidents used to take a 20-12 lead at the first quarter break.

Things began to get away from Geneva in the second quarter as the offense went cold.  Geneva managed just three points in the quarter, enabling W&J to take a commanding 33-15 halftime lead.

The Presidents stretched their lead to 23 points, 46-23, with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter before Geneva began to mount a furious rally.  Over the next eight minutes, Geneva went on a 31-8 run to tie the score at 54-54 with four minutes remaining.  Senior Callie Ford (New Middleton, Ohio/Springfield Local) scored 12 points in the run, while sophomore Alexis Gates (New Waterford, Ohio/Crestview) and freshman Shannon Wolfe (Alliance, Ohio/West Branch) each added seven points.

At that point W&J responded with eight quick points over the next two minutes, enabling the Presidents to hold off Geneva in collecting the 67-59 win.

"We've got to figure out how to play a full 40 minutes," said Head Coach Lori Wynn.  "I was obviously really pleased with the fight we showed late against a really good W&J team, but we just can't keep putting ourselves in big holes.  The last two games showed we can compete with some of the best teams in our conference, but we just can't have those long bad stretches of play that have really hurt us so far this season.  Hopefully we can use the momentum from our play late, when we got some good contributions from a number of players, as we continue to try to find some consistency."

Ford led the offense with 24 points, while Wolfe ended up with nine points off the bench.  Turnovers were a key in the game as Geneva turned it over 26 times, twice as many as W&J who ended with 13.  Geneva outrebounded W&J 39-31, but the Presidents had the edge in shooting from the floor, 47% to 41%.  Danielle Parker led the Presidents with 19 points.

Geneva returns to action on Tuesday when the Golden Tornadoes host non-conference foe Houghton College.  Tipoff is 6:00 p.m.


Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to God and neighbor. Offering over 80 traditional undergraduate majors and programs, fully online Adult Degree Programs, and high-demand graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. U.S. News & World Report ranks Geneva as a Top Three Best Value Regional University with one of the Top 100 engineering programs in the nation. Adhering to the truth of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God's Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today's world.