FINAL SCORE: Apprentice School 74, Juniata 73
RECORDS: Apprentice School 5-6; Juniata 2-9
LOCATION: Huntingdon, PA
EVENT: Juniata Holiday Tournament
IN BRIEF: In a game that saw 10 ties and 11 lead changes, two Kenya Wilkerson free throws with 14 seconds left helped lead the Lady Builders to a 74-73 win over homestanding Juniata College in the third-place game of the Juniata College Holiday Tournament on Wednesday.
 

ON THE COURT

• The first seven minutes saw four ties as Kenya Wilkerson hit a pair of free throws to tie the game 14-all with 12:40 left in the half.
• Juniata scored the next seven points to take a 21-14 lead with 9:57 left in the half as Olivia Halfpenny hit a jumper for the hosts.
• The hosts kept their seven-point advantage at 26-19 when Kelsey Livoti hit a a 3-pointer with 7:29 left.  Apprentice School responded with an 9-0 run to lead 28-26 on a pair of Wilkerson free throws with 5:30 left.
• Juniata responded with the next eight points as a Katy Learner 3-pointer gave the Eagles a 34-28 lead with 2:26 left.  Ylexzis Traeger then answered for the Lady Builders scoring the next five points to get them to 34-33 with 49 seconds remaining.  The hosts ended the half with the last five points as Liz Wortman hit a pair of free throws to lead 39-33 at the break.
• In the second half, the lead went back to seven on a Danielle Atkinson layup with 18:15 left as Juniata held a 44-37 lead.  The Lady Builders scored the next nine points as a Wilkerson layup with 16:01 left put them ahead 46-44.  
• Maria Photiades answered for Juniata with a layup nine seconds later to tie the game for the seventh time at 46-all.  From there. neither team had more than a four-point lead in the final 16 minutes.
• After a Livoti layup gave the hosts a 70-69 lead with 2:16 left, Wilkerson responded with a jumper to put the Lady Builders back up 71-70.  Following some missed shots by both teams, Wilkerson was fouled with 18 seconds left and hit the first free throw for a 72-70 lead.  After missing the second, she got the offensive rebound and was fouled.  This time she hit both to put Apprentice School up 74-70 with 17 seconds left.
• Photiades went 1-of-2 from the line with eight seconds left to get the hosts to 74-71.  A 3-pointer from Halfpenny rimmed out but Photades put the rebound in with four seconds left for the eventual final of 74-73.

BEHIND THE BOXSCORE

• Wilkerson paced all scorers with 23 points and added seven rebounds along with four steals.  This was her second 20+-point outing only trailing her 27-point game in a home loss to Christopher Newport University.
• Traeger set a season-high with her 19 points and had five rebounds for the Lady Builders.  
• Jessica Neighbors matched her career-high with 16 points that she set last year at Mid-Atlantic Christian.  She also matched her career-high with nine rebounds that she set twice last year.
• Courtney White also just missed a double-double with eight points and a team-high 10 rebounds.
•  As a team, the Lady Builders were 28-of-75 from the floor (37.3%) and 18-of-28 from the foul line (64.3%).  They out-rebounded Juniata 49-44.
• The Eagles were topped by Learner with 14 points and 10 rebounds coming off the bench.  Natalie Hager chipped in with 12 points and Photiades scored 10 for Juniata.

ALL-TOURNAMENT
Traeger was named to the All-Tournament team at the conclusion of the event.  She was joined by Halfpenny (Juniata), Ally Ferucci (Widener), Carli Patrick (Heidelberg) and MVP Brianna Wylie (Widener).  Widener defeated Heidelberg 55-51 in the championship game.

NEXT UP - New York weekend
The Lady Builders will start 2015 in New York with a United States Collegiate Athletic Association weekend doubleheader.  On January 9, they'll face Briarcliffe College in West Hempstead, NY at 7 pm.  The next afternoon they'll face St. Joseph's College-Brooklyn in The Hill Center on the SJC campus at 4 pm.  That'll be a doubleheader with the men as they'll face St. Joseph's College-Brooklyn at 6 pm.

Game Photo: Courtesy of Jeff Garvin - Director of Athletic Marketing & Information - Heidelberg University.