Goshen, IN — For the Goshen College women’s basketball seniors Kortney Hanson, Erin McDugle and Candice Williams, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Not on a day where the entire Leafs’ team was recognized with a banner for its incredible accomplishments of the 2003-2004 season — celebrating a Mid-Central Conference regular-season and tournament championship, the best win-loss record in school history and the program’s first trip to the NAIA National Championship Tournament. It wasn’t supposed to be like this for McDugle, the program’s all-time leading scorer and 2003-2004 MCC Player of the Year, or Williams, a fellow MCC First Teamer who scored nearly 1,000 points in just two seasons at Goshen after transferring from Vincennes University. It certainly wasn’t meant to be like this for Hanson, a fiery competitor that unselfishly ran the team from the point guard position for the majority of the last four seasons.

Incredibly on Saturday at the Roman Gingerich Center, Goshen’s senior day and 2003-2004 championship banner presentation concluded with a 41-64 loss to MCC rival Grace College, snapping a 46-game MCC losing streak for the Lady Lancers in the process. Grace’s last MCC win came in the 2001-2002 season against Huntington College. On Saturday, however, the Lady Lancers were the ultimate party crashers.

“I think today being senior day and the last home game of the season really affected us,” said Steve Wiktorowski, Goshen head coach. “I thought we did some good things offensively, but couldn’t convert those positives into points. I thought we played nervous and tight because the girls really wanted to play well on senior day, but were so tight that we missed a lot of high percentage shots.”

The nervousness for Goshen (11-20, 3-13) was apparent early on, as Grace got out to a quick 5-0 lead just two minutes into the contest. Wiktorowski’s squad was able to tie the game at 5-5 after Williams canned a three-ball and scored a layup, but it would be the last close moment of the game. Grace went on a 16 to two run over the game’s next five and a half minutes to grab a 21-7 lead with 10:42 remaining in the half. The Leafs would cut the lead to nine points (a 17-26 deficit) with 3:07 to play in the period, but Grace closed with a five to nothing spurt to make it a 31-17 lead at the half.

“Our defense made Grace take some tough shots, and they hit some, especially some threes,” Wiktorowski said. “Our press gave them some problems, but we didn’t turn it into enough points.”

That story line held true again in the second period, as the Lady Lancers were able to push their lead to 17 points (34-17) just moments after stepping back on the floor. Goshen was able to cut the lead to 12 points on two different occasions, but could get no closer. Grace finished the game with a 13 to four run, helping the squad to the 23-point win, the largest advantage Grace enjoyed all afternoon.

Shooting percentages were the deciding factor in the game, as Grace finished the afternoon connecting on 23 of 49 shots from the floor (46.9 percent) compared to Goshen’s 18 for 57 effort (31.6 percent). The Lady Lancers hit nine of 16 tries from three-point land (56.3 percent), while Goshen made just three long-balls in as many tries (18.8 percent). Grace also got to the free throw line 13 times compared to Goshen’s three charity tosses, a rare feat seeing that the Leafs have outshot their opponents from the free throw line in 27 of 31 games on the season.

Other categories proved to be fairly equal on the afternoon, as Grace turned the ball over 19 times compared to Goshen’s 18 giveaways. Both teams had a strong effort on the offensive glass, as the Leafs snagged 12 o-boards while Grace secured 13. The pure disparity in missed shots gave the Lady Lancers a major advantage in defensive rebounding, however, as Grace won that category by a 27 to 17 count.

Williams was the only Leaf to score in double-figures on the evening, charting 14 points on a five of 15 shooting effort. McDugle and junior Jenn Rupp were next on the list, each scoring six points. Freshman Kelsy McKee and junior Ashley Woodlee each scored four points.

“While our seniors struggled offensively, they played very hard in their last game here,” Wiktorowski said. “I thought that (freshman) Sarah Arnold (three points, five rebounds) did some very positive things off the bench today at the point. (Freshman) Carly Feldman did some good things in the paint in the first half, and Jenn Rupp gave us some good offensive penetration. We will need to be better decision makers than today in order to compete in the conference tournament next week.”

With Spring Arbor University making the MCC a nine-team league this season, Goshen (the eighth seed) will travel to third-ranked, first-seeded and MCC regular-season champion Indiana Wesleyan University Tuesday night at 7 p.m. to open MCC Tournament competition. Wesleyan went a perfect 16-0 in MCC play this season. Grace, as the ninth-place team in the MCC, will not participate in the post-season tournament.

For a complete recap of MCC final standings, tournament seedings and brackets, click here.