SOUTHFIELD--Senior Jade Faris made a free throw with 1.8 seconds remaining to lift the Lawrence Tech women's basketball team to a 67-66 victory Wednesday over visiting Aquinas at the Don Ridler Field House. The Blue Devils improve to 10-11 overall and up their Wolverine–Hoosier Athletic Conference slate to 8-7, while the Saints drop to 8-13 on the season and 5-10 in the WHAC.

Lawrence Tech Highlights

• Faris led LTU with 18 points, grabbed seven rebounds, dished two assists and had two steals. 
• Fifth-year senior Julia Huey tallied 15 points all beyond the three-point arc.
• Freshman DeDe Smith (5 points) pulled down a career-best 14 rebounds to top all student-athletes.
• Sophomore Kate Jacobs added 10 points and two blocked shots
• Senior Addie Nagel came off the bench to dish a career-best six assists to lead all playmakers.

Aquinas Highlights

• Alona Blackwell led all scorers with 34 points while playing the entire game.
• Claire Gregwer (5 points) led the Saints with nine rebounds.

How it Happened 

• The close contest featured six ties and six lead changes.
• The Blue Devils built as much as a 12-point lead with 7 minutes and 8 seconds left in the second quarter on a pair of senior Dominique Evans (9 points, 6 rebounds) free throws for a 29-17 advantage.
• Lawrence Tech went into the halftime break up 36-31 and kept its lead through three quarters, 51-45.
• In the fourth quarter, Aquinas took its first lead since 10-8 with a Brynn Reams (4 points) layup at the 5:20 mark (57-56).
• The teams traded points for the remainder of the game until Faris made a layup with 72 seconds left for a 66-64 lead before Ashlyn Wilkes made two free throws to tie it with 23 seconds remaining.
• Lawrence Tech then called a timeout to set up a play for Faris inside the key where she was fouled with 3 seconds left.
• Aquinas got the defensive rebound off Faris' second missed free throw attempt and called timeout. The Saints in-bounded the ball at halfcourt and found Blackwell for a turnaround shot at the top of the key, but came up short.
• Despite trailing for most of the night, Aquinas stayed within striking distance while making 17 of 23 free throws for 73.9 percent (LTU was 11-for-21) and scoring 15 second-chance points on 11 offensive rebounds.

Beyond the Boxscore

• Aquinas leads the all-time series 13-11, but LTU swept both regular-season meetings in 2023-24.
• Lawrence Tech continued its trend of allowing just one opponent to shoot .500 or better from the field, holding Aquinas to .354 percentage.

Up Next

• Lawrence Tech hosts Rochester University at 1 p.m. Saturday in another WHAC tilt.