DENVER - The University of Denver women's basketball team fell 69-66 to Seattle on Sunday afternoon at Magness Arena. The loss moves Denver to 8-9 overall and 3-3 in Western Athletic Conference play, while the Redhawks remain perfect in the conference (5-0), improving to 8-6 overall.

"We showed great fight out there this afternoon," said head coach Kerry Cremeans. "You've got to give Seattle a lot of credit, their defense is phenomenal. They average 15 steals a game, and ended up with 11 today. I think those steals came at key moments, and they were able to turn those into easy points. That was a little bit of the difference late in the game."

Sophomore guard Morgan Van Riper-Rose (Eden Prairie, Minn.) led the Pioneers in scoring with 21 points and also added 3 assists. Senior guard Emiko Smith (Los Angeles, Calif.) finished with a double-double on Saturday, scoring 10 points and distributing 10 assists. Freshman guard Kailey Edwards (Broomfield, Colo.) and junior forward Desiree Hunter (Cypress, Calif.) both gave Cremeans' squad quality minutes off the bench, setting career-highs in points with 16 and nine, respectively.

The Pioneers early first half lead came from its defensive play on Sunday, allowing DU to race out to an 18-9 advantage just shy of the midway point in the first half. The Redhawks responded with a 10-3 run, led by five points from Sylvia Shephard, to cut the Pioneers lead to two with 7:42 to play in the first half. Denver would stretch it back to seven to take a 35-28 lead into the intermission. Seven of Hunter's nine points came in the first half.

Seattle erased the margin in the first seven minutes of the second half, as another Shephard three-pointer gave the Redhawks their first lead of the final 20 minutes. Edwards, who scored 12 of her 16 in the second half, hit her first of two second-half triples with 11:03 remaining to knot the score back up at 50. The game went back and forth the rest of the way, with neither team taking more than a four point lead the rest of the afternoon. There were nine lead changes and seven ties in the second half, but a Daidra Brown layup with 1:25 to go, and a pair of Kacie Sowell free throws down the stretch proved to be the difference.

Seattle was led by Shephard's 21 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals. Ashley Ward and Sowell also finished in double figures for the Redhawks with 15 and 10, respectively.

Denver finished the game shooting 44.6 percent (25-of-56) to Seattle's 43.3 percent (26-of-60).

The Pioneers will return to the road next week to take on San Jose State on Thursday at 8 p.m. MT and Utah State on Saturday at 7 p.m. MT.

Visit DenverPioneers.com for complete coverage of all 17 of DU's NCAA Division I sports.

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