The Hillsdale women’s basketball team fell short on the road this week with two losses to Kentucky Wesleyan and Trevecca Nazarene, dropping to 5-6 in the G-MAC.

In a 54-56 finish against the Trojans, senior Grace Touchette hit a personal milestone, becoming only the sixth athlete in Hillsdale women’s basketball history to score 1500 career points.

“She’s an unbelievable leader and teammate,” assistant coach Brianna Brennan said. “She hasn’t been solely focused on her individual accolades. She’s definitely a team-first player but has continued to improve her game year in and year out, and it shows. So cool to reward and celebrate her for such a huge milestone.”

Touchette said that reaching the milestone was exciting, but she did not realize during the game how close she was to hitting 1500 points. 

“My teammates were all cheering really loudly on the bench when I made a basket,” Touchette said. “They cheer all the time, but I was like ‘that’s a little bit odd.’ And then after the post game talk, the coaches brought out a sign, and it was really sweet.”

The Chargers were short handed in their start against the Kentucky Wesleyan Wildcats on Thursday, missing junior Ashley Konkle and sophomores Carly Callahan and Kendall McCormick. Starting out with an 11 point deficit in the first quarter, the Chargers scored 23 points in the second quarter to trail 30-34 at the half.  The Wildcats rallied in the fourth to score 24 points to Hillsdale’s 13 and take control of the game. The Chargers brought it back within 9 points with 1:19 on the clock in the fourth quarter, but a strong defensive effort by the Wildcats held the Chargers scoreless for the remaining time and sealed the game 57-70. 

Brennan said she was proud of how the team fought through, especially with key players missing from the roster. 

“When you’re down a couple players, it doesn’t make it any easier. But we went down there and battled,” Brennan said. “We gave them everything we could and came up short.”

Touchette and sophomore Caitlin Splain led scoring with nine points each. Senior Sydney Mills scored eight points and grabbed a game high of nine rebounds for the Chargers. Senior Ariana Sysum chipped in eight points and seven rebounds. Senior Maverick Delp had a strong night off the bench with seven points and four rebounds. 

Hillsdale fell short again in the fourth quarter on Saturday to a last minute comeback by Trevecca Nazarene. The Chargers entered the fourth quarter with a 44-31 lead. In the final three minutes, the Trojans rallied to bring the score within two points. Splain hit a 3-pointer with 2:42 to play, but the Trojans took the lead on a 7-0 run. Mills scored a layup with 15 seconds left to play, tying the game 54-54 and giving the Chargers a chance at overtime. With only 0.8 seconds on the clock, the Trojans hit a game winning layup to seal the score at 54-56.

The Chargers shot 40.4% from the floor and grabbed 22 rebounds, with the Trojans shooting at 44.1% with 45 rebounds. 

Mills had a strong night with a game high 13 points and seven rebounds. Splain hit three 3-pointers and finished with a total of 11 points and four rebounds. Touchette added nine points and surpassed 1500 for her career. 

Head coach Charlie Averkamp said the team played well defensively in both games until the last five minutes.

“Unfortunately, you got to play 40 minutes to beat good teams on the road,” Averkamp said. “I think in both games, we played 35 very, very good minutes. Unfortunately, in the five minutes of both games, we just let those leads kind of slip away.”

The Chargers are currently seventh place in the G-MAC and will play eighth place Cedarville at home on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. before facing Northwood University on the road on Saturday at 1 p.m. Both games will factor heavily into whether the team qualifies for the G-MAC tournament.

“Every game is a big game,” Brennan said. “So we’re just excited to have a home game and then an away game on Saturday and see what we can do.”