ELMHURST, Ill. - Carroll's women's basketball team battled back to erase a 23-point first half deficit and a 12-point deficit in the final four minutes of regulation to force overtime in Saturday's regular season finale at Elmhurst University. The Pioneers would ultimately lose in OT by a score of 93-88 in what was their final tuneup before next week's College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) Tournament.

Elmhurst (16-8, 8-8) controlled the game early, scoring the first basket of the night and getting out to a 12-2 lead two minutes into the contest. The Blue Jays would go into the second quarter with a 29-18 lead. They would use a 7-2 run in the first couple minutes of the second period to take a 16-point lead, en route to a 52-31 halftime lead.

The Blue Jays would take their largest lead of 24 points on a layup with six and a half minutes to play in the third quarter. Slowly but surely, Carroll (17-8, 12-4 CCIW) climbed back in the game, ending that period on an 18-7 run to cut that lead to 13 as the teams entered the fourth. A quick 10-4 run to start that period cut the lead to seven with seven and a half minutes remaining. Elmhurst would push their lead back to 12 points on a 3-pointer with just under five minutes remaining in regulation. That's when the Pios truly went to work. Beginning with an Olivia Rangel fast-break layup, Carroll would score the final 12 points of the quarter, with the dynamic scoring duo of Rangel and Natalie Gricius combining to score 10 of those to send the game to overtime tied at 81.

In the extra period, Elmhurst scored the first four points, but Carroll again battled back, tying the score at 87 on a Gricius 3-pointer with one and a half minutes to play. The Blue Jays would end the game on a 6-1 run, sinking a pair of free throws in the final seconds to put the game out of reach.

Carroll finished the game shooting 47 percent (33-70) from the field, including 38 percent (8-21) from 3-point range. Gricius led all scorers with a career-high 37 points, which is just seven shy of Carroll's single game record. She also became just the 18th player in program history to surpass 1,000 career points, and currently ranks second in the CCIW in scoring (17.9 ppg). The conference's top scorer, teammate Olivia Rangel, finished with 26 points on 11-of-18 shooting, while playing all 45 minutes, improving her season scoring average to 18.4 ppg. She added 10 assists and eight rebounds, as she narrowly missed recording her second career triple-double. Chloe Halverson led all players with 11 rebounds for the Pioneers.

Elmhurst saw five players score in double figures, led by Sierra Gibson and Lindsay Novak, whom each scored 20 points. Kristin Bukata added 19 points, 12 assists, and six rebounds, while MC Brown and Cierra Steemer scored 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Carroll will be the number two seed in next week's CCIW Tournament. They will receive a bye in the CCIW Quarterfinals, before playing their CCIW Semifinal game Friday at 5 p.m. at Shirk Center in Bloomington, Ill. Their opponent is still to be determined, as they will face the highest remaining seed after Tuesday's quarterfinals. The winners of Friday's semifinals will face each other in the CCIW Championship Game on Saturday at 7 p.m. with an automatic bid to the NCAA Division-III Tournament on the line.