DEKALB, Ill. - The Western Michigan women's basketball team suffered a 70-69 heartbreaking loss after a crazy finish in the first round of the Mid-American Conference at Northern Illinois University Monday, March 11. 

Down 70-69 with under a second remaining in the game, the No. 10 seeded Broncos had a chance to down the No. 7 seed NIU as Leighah-Amori Wool was fouled coming down with a Jasmyn Walker jumper that was tipped. However, Wool came up short at the line as the Huskies escaped with the one-point victory to advance to Cleveland. 

The lead changed five times with the scored knotting three times in the final 10 minutes alone in the MAC Tournament thriller. Down 38-29 at halftime, the Broncos turned in a strong third quarter to trim the Huskie lead to 51-50 heading into the final stanza. A Wool three-pointer with just over four minutes remaining gave WMU its largest lead of the game at 63-60. Deja Wimby made two free throws to put the Brown & Gold up 69-68, but a Mikayla Voigt layup following a Huskie timeout with under 10 seconds in the game stood as the eventual game-winning basket. 

"We gave everything we had and put ourselves in a position to win it but we just couldn't finish the deal," said head coach Shane Clipfell. "I thought we were as tough as we have been all year in that last 20 minutes on both ends of the court."

Wimby tied a season-high with a game-high 24 points along with seven assists, shooting 9-of-19 from the field. Wool followed with 17 points as well as Meredith Miller adding 14 points shooting 4-of-7 from long-range. Walker grabbed a team-high six rebounds. WMU shot 25-of-57 from the field, 7-for-20 at the arc, and struggled at the charity stripe going 12-for-20. NIU held a 35-32 advantage in rebounds while shooting 27-of-57 from the field. 

Northern Illinois opened the contest jumping out to an 11-4 lead, which WMU answered on a 6-0 run to trim the NIU lead to 11-10 five minutes in. The Huskies shot over 50 percent from the field in the first 10 minutes to claim a 19-15 lead.

Western Michigan took its first lead of the game with a Wimby layup, giving the Broncos a 26-25 advantage with five minutes remaining in the first half. The home team answered, closing out the half on a 13-3 run to claim a nine-point lead at the intermission.

The Brown & Gold opened the second half outscoring NIU 9-3 to trim the Huskie lead to 41-40 at the first media timeout with four and half left in the third. Two free throws from Kamrin Reed tied the game at 42-42 soon after and a Wool layup during an in-bounds play at the buzzer set the score at 51-50 in favor of the home team, leading to the exciting finish. 

"I'm proud of this group," Clipfell commented. "For all of the things we had to overcome with all the obstacles we had, this team battled consistently and grew together."

Western Michigan finishes the season with a 10-20 overall record, missing out on a trip to Cleveland for the first time in six seasons. 

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