The Middlebury women's basketball team went back-and-forth against Wesleyan in the initial three quarters, but the Cardinals put together a late surge to earn a 56-40 win over the Panthers.
 
HIGHLIGHTS

• The opening stanza was tightly contested, with neither team able to gain more than a two-point edge. As the buzzer sounded, Wesleyan's Madie Dayton laid the ball in to knot the score at 16-16.
• The Cardinals carried the momentum into the second quarter, rattling off 10 unanswered points for a 26-16 lead midway through the session.
• Middlebury responded with a 10-0 run of its own, capped by a three-pointer from Calie Messina with 2:44 to go.
• Wesleyan mustered a single layup, but Catherine Carrafiello converted one from the stripe to cut the deficit to one (28-27) at the intermission.
• The teams traded small spurts throughout the third, but a trio of free throws with less than a minute to go gave the Cardinals a slight edge (41-36).
• Wesleyan opened the final frame with a decisive 9-0 run to increase its advantage to 50-36 at the 6:12 mark.
• A 4-0 burst by Middlebury put the squad within striking distance (50-40), but it was forced to foul down the stretch. The Cardinals went 6-of-8 at the stripe to secure the 56-40 victory.

NOTES

• With 12 points today, Messina has tallied double digits in eight of the last 11 contests.
• The teams squared off for the 39th time with the Panthers owning a 24-15 mark in the series.

Middlebury returns home for a three-game stretch beginning on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. against Smith.