LORETTO, Pa. (Dec. 4, 2010) – It needed an extra frame to pull it off, but Saint Francis overcame a sluggish first half to hand Kent State its first loss of the season, 101-92, at DeGol Arena on Saturday afternoon.  The win evened SFU's record at 4-4 and its 101 points marked its fifth-highest scoring output in program history.

“I guess all I can say is 'wow',” said Red Flash head coach Susan Robinson Fruchtl.

“We certainly had offense in the first half but didn't play a whole lot of defense.  We just didn't communicate a whole lot, we gave up transition buckets.  They had 21 points off of our turnovers, so we obviously turned the ball over way too much.”

The Flash trailed 49-37 at the intermission due in large part to 15 turnovers which prevented SFU from building much momentum, despite shooting 48.3 percent from the field.

Saint Francis cut its turnovers to seven for the duration and continued its hot shooting, firing at a 52.2 percent clip for the game.

The Golden Flashes (6-1) – who had wins over Washington and touted Canisius on its resume – committed 28 turnovers which resulted in 32 Red Flash points.

And then there was freshman Alli Williams (Altoona, Pa./Bishop Guilfoyle).

Williams went off for 29 points – 11 of which came in the overtime period.  Senior Samantha Leach (Mount Sterling, Ohio/Miami Trace) was close behind with 26 points – including a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line.

“We attacked and played how we know how to play down the stretch,” said Robinson Fruchtl.  “We got stops when we needed to get them and we found [Alli] because it was a big mismatch inside and our guards did a tremendous job of finding her.”

Brittany Lilley (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park), in particular, had success setting up plenty of scores by racking up a career-best 15 assists.  That, along with her 17 points, gave the junior the second double-double of her career.

The Flash trailed for the entire second half until taking a 81-80 lead on an Allison Daly (Harrisburg, Pa./Trinity) jumper with 34 seconds left in regulation.  A pair of Leach free throws extended the SFU advantage to three with seven seconds to go, but a buzzer-beating three by Kent State's Stephanie Gibson forced overtime.

In overtime Williams and the Red Flash took over, converting on 6-of-6 field goal attempts to double-up the Golden Flashes 18-9 in the frame.

In addition to Williams, Leach and Lilley, Daly also hit double figures with 19 points.

“Kent State is good.  They're gonna finish pretty high, I think, in the MAC and the MAC is a quality conference,” said Robinson Fruchtl.

The Red Flash are off until Dec. 16 when they visit Howard.