Nov. 27, 2015 Final Stats | Photo Gallery 
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LOS ANGELES - The LMU women's basketball team completely erased a 17-point deficit to take a three-point, fourth-quarter lead over Seattle Friday afternoon in both teams' LMU Thanksgiving Classic opener. But the Redhawks had a late charge of their own, sending the Lions to a 78-69 setback.
LMU (1-4) will face UC Irvine (1-3) in the Classic's consolation game at 1 p.m. Seattle (3-3) will meet Princeton (4-1) in the championship game at 3:30 p.m. The Tigers toppled the Anteaters 83-42 in the first game of the day.
The Lions second-half charge was led by Bree Alford who had nine of her team-high 15 points during LMU's run. Trailing 46-29 with 5:33 to play in the third quarter, Alford hit a free-throw, then, on the ensuing LMU possession, pulled down an offensive board and sank a layup.
Andee Velasco would score the next three LMU points from the charity stripe before Alford would hit four straight from the line, trimming the deficit down to 11, 50-39 with 1:20 to play in the period. Cheyenne Wallace followed with a layup and Leslie Lopez-Wood closed out the quarter with a three, bringing the Lions to within six.
LMU opened the fourth quarter with seven straight points, capped by an Alford layup that gave the Lions the lead, 51-50, for the first time since early in the first quarter.
Seattle's Tal Sahar halted the Lion run with a jumper, but Lopez-Wood responded with a jumper of her own and two Deanna Johnson free throws pushed LMU's lead to three, 55-52, with 7:09 remaining in the fourth.
The tide turned as the quarter ran down, however, as a 12-0 Redraw run opened up a 72-59 advantage with just over a minute remaining.
Alford added eight boards, three assists and three steals to her 15 points. Wallace also had 15 points and nine rebounds while Lopez-Wood and Sophie Taylor reached double figures with 13 and 10 points, respectively. Valence had a game-high seven assists off the bench.
Seattle also had four players in double figures including Ashlyn Lewey with 16 and Wilma Afungo with 14.
The teams were fairly evenly matched in nearly very statistical category except field goal percentage. The Lions hit just 34.5 percent from the field and 16.7 percent from three while SU was 46.6 percent overall and 44.4 percent from beyond the arc.
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