ST. LOUIS – With many eyes on redemption and a game of high emotion, Missouri Baptist women's basketball ended up on the losing end for the first time in conference action of the season.
 
Missouri Baptist (7-3, 4-1 in AMC) sprinted out to a 12-2 lead early against Columbia College (9-3, 5-1 in AMC) before the Cougars slowly crept their way back into the game. Columbia (CC) flipped the script from the first to the second quarter and went from trailing by 10 to holding a one-point edge at the break. From there, the Spartans fought to keep it competitive, but the Cougars managed to keep MoBap at bay and left the Carl & Deloris Petty SRC with a win, 67-59.
 
MBU was able to regain the lead once in the third but fell victim to foul trouble for starters Deyana Dodd and Alexis Allstun. A three-minute long dry spell early on in the fourth was followed by a 9-4 run by CC that all but put the game out of reach for the Spartans. Tionne Taylor was a bright spot once again, scoring 22 points to have the most for any player. Dodd managed to score 10, and with four rebounds tied for the lead in boards with forwards Kayleigh Winch and Joelle Atkins.
 
MBU had to battle against a large disparity in bench scoring and a rebounding advantage for CC. The Cougars outdid the Spartans with 35 points from non-starters as opposed to MBU's 21 and outrebounded MoBap 56-39. The home side won the turnover battle by seven and had 10 steals, but the largest difference came from the charity stripe, where CC thrived. Columbia shot a whopping 26-of-28 (92.9 percent) from the free throw line as opposed to Missouri Baptist's 9-of-16 successful attempts at the line.
 
 "We lost to a good team [and] that's kind of how basketball goes," head coach Sam Pearson said. "We're not too good to know that we can't lose a basketball game. At the end of the day, we've really built this thing from the ground up [and] it was at one point we were straight from the bottom of the barrel in the conference, so to be around the top of the conference feels great.
 
"We'll make our adjustments and we'll see them again soon."
 
The loss will hurt, but does not put the Spartans out of it in terms of the American Midwest Conference (AMC) standings. MoBap finds itself in a four-way heat with UHSP, Columbia and Stephens for the top spot.
 
Other Spartan stat lines of note included Winch (6 points, 4 rebounds), and Nyah Ford (5 points, 2 rebounds).
 
Missouri Baptist will wind things down for the Christmas break after an exhibition matchup with Missouri S&T of Division II on Monday, Dec. 19th at 11:00 am in Rolla, Mo. before a non-conference home game against Judson University before the new year on Thursday, Dec. 29th at 5:30 pm.