Rival Central hit a last second shot to give the women’s basketball team their third straight loss.

After Central’s Kate Humiston made a three-pointer to go up by two, junior Amy Van Pelt made a lay-up with 19 seconds remaining to tie the game at 64.

But Central had the last word as Lisa Nitching made the last shot of the game with three seconds left to defeat the Storm 66-64.

“We lost, but we had some good plays,” said senior Casey Spree. “We just had a few breakdowns that kicked us in the butt.”

Spree had a game high 20 points, on 8-12 shooting from the field, to go along with her five rebounds. Senior Michelle Stover and junior Krista Van Hauen were the only other starters for the Storm that scored in double figures. Stover had 10 points and Van Hauen 11. Junior Annika Gustafson contributed nine points and 10 rebounds off the bench.

“We had a few mental breakdowns and we lost by two,” said Van Hauen. “But we played hard and that is all you can ask for.”

Even with the loss, the women feel that they played solid defense and that created chances for them on offense.

“Defense was probably our strong point,” said Van Hauen. “Sometimes our offense came around because of our defense. So our defense creates our offense.”

With the Storm still holding onto fourth place in the IIAC, they are very optimistic about the rest of their regular season.

“We want to win the rest of our games and get as good of a seed as possible for the conference tournament,” said Spree. “We then want to beat everybody outright and win conference.”

Reaching the conference tournament playing well is something that the women would like. They still have reaching the NCAA Tournament as one of their goals.

“We want to be playing the best basketball possible once we hit the tournament,” said head coach Brian Niemuth. “The conference tournament gives you a little bit of a second life and our goal is to win the conference tournament and get into the NCAA tournament.”