Box Score Kearney, Neb. – Colorado-Colorado Springs weathered an early storm and got a combined 44 points from Jessica Brown and Abby Kirchoff to rally past Nebraska-Kearney, 73-66, Saturday night at the Health & Sports Center.

The Mountain Lions (15-11, 10-10 RMAC) win a fourth straight game to remain one of the hottest teams in the league while the Lopers (7-19, 7-14 RMAC) see their post-season hopes come to an end.

After tallying 41 points in the final 13 minutes of Friday's thrilling double overtime win over CSU-Pueblo, UNK kept up its torrid offensive pace by scoring 43 first half points tonight.

The Lopers shot over 70% from the floor for much of the first half to lead by as many as 14 points. However, UCCS started to warm up after a slow start and, in addition to grabbing eight offensive rebounds, used a late 7-0 run to go into the locker room down by only a 43-38 score.

UNK then lost its offensive magic as it made just 7 of 30 field goals (23.3%) after the break. The Lions took the lead for good with 15:57 to go after Kirchoff made one of her five threes.

The Lopers still hung around, never getting behind by more than seven points, but UCCS always had a response to a UNK run. Kirchoff, after a Kearney three, hit another bomb to make it 64-60 with 5:16 to play. Later, senior Debi Johnson (Elsie) had a chance to tie the game at 69 but her three point attempt misfired.

Brown hit a series of jumpers in the lane to score a game-high 24 points. Making 9 of 15 shots, she also had six rebounds and five assists. Getting hot in the second half, Kirchoff went 5 of 6 from behind the arc to score 20 points. Finally, post Sammi Gentile had nine rebounds (five offensive) and four points.

UNK got 19 points from senior wing Vanessa Leeper Jones (Colo. Springs, Colo.) and 14 points from Johnson and senior guard Tessa Kreutzer (Loomis). Kreutzer went 5 of 5 from the floor in the first half and ended up two points shy of her career-high point total.

By scoring 44 points this weekend, Johnson moved past current Omaha Marian head coach Beth Swift ('02/1,414) into 10th place on the Lopers career scoring list. The Perkins County grad now has scored 1,425 points.  

UNK ends the season next Saturday at Chadron State.