The Chestnut Hill College Women's Basketball team made six free throws in the final 39 seconds of a wild fourth quarter as they held off host Queens College 71-67 to earn their first win of the season Sunday afternoon at the ECC/CACC Challenge in Flushing, New York.

The Griffins are now 1-1 on the season.  Queens falls to 0-2.

The six free throws highlighted an 8-2 run over the final 1:36 which saw the Griffins overcome a slim Knights lead and pull away with the win.   The fourth quarter saw a total of nine lead changes with the Griffins tasking the lead for good on a traditional three-point play by freshman Emily Chmiel with 33 seconds left.   Chmiel scored eight of her 13 points in the fourth quarter including four in the final 39 seconds.

Leah Miller scored six of her game-high 22 points (9-16 FG) in the fourth quarter.  Miller also had six rebounds and two assists.  Cassie Sebold fell one assist shy of a double-double, scoring 12 points and dishing out nine assists.  The senior guard also had two steals.  Chmiel added seven rebounds to go along with her 13 points.  Kaitlyn Carter finished the game with nine points, four steals and four assists. 

Queens led by two entering the fourth quarter and pushed the lead to four on a Chelsea Reeves layup.   Miller quickly cut it back to one with a layup-and-one before Carter gave the Griffins a 55-54 lead with 8:34 left.  Over the next four minutes the lead changed hands five times before the Knights opened a three-point advantage 62-59 with 4:09 left.  The Griffins scored the next four points with two Chmiel free throws and a Miller layup to take a 63-62 lead with 2:05 left.    Queens' Tsahai Corbie followed with a three-pointer which would give the Knights a 65-63 lead and would also turn out to be the last basket made by the hosts.  The Knights had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds, but the Griffins defense forced a five-second violation on an inbounds beneath the Knights' basket with 2.3 seconds left to essentially seal the win.  Sebold added two insurance free throws with 0.7 seconds left to round out the scoring.

It wasn't until the third quarter that the Griffins took their first lead of the game.  Queens scored the first basket of the quarter to lead by five 35-30 before the Griffins countered with an 12-1 uprising to not only take their first lead but to open their widest margin at six points 42-36 midway through the quarter.  Queens scored the next eight points to retake the lead at 44-42 with three minutes left.  The last three minutes saw three ties and two lead changes with the Griffins trailing by two heading into the final ten minutes of play.

Queens had their biggest lead of the game in the second quarter scoring the first five points to lead by ten 20-10 before the Griffins came back with a 16-6 run to tie the game at 26-26 but never taking the lead as the period wore on.  The Knights pushed the lead back to six in the final three minutes but free throws from Lindsay Lane and Carter cut the margin to 33-30 at halftime.

The Chestnut Hill College Women's Basketball team is back in action on Wednesday, November 17, 2021, when they travel to face Millersville University.  Tipoff is set for 6:00 p.m.