FARMVILLE. Va. – The UMass Lowell women's basketball team erased a 19-point deficit with a 53-point second half, but could not complete the comeback as Longwood held on for the 84-82 win on Saturday afternoon.
 
Jennifer Louro (Belmar, N.J.) had a chance to pull off the victory but her three at the buzzer danced around the rim before falling into a scrum of hands as the clock expired.
 
The River Hawks (1-3) faced a 52-33 deficit with 7:12 left in the third quarter, as the Lancers (1-2) had a 16-point lead at the half.
 
For the fourth consecutive game, Paula Lopez (Leon, Spain) paced the team with 17 points, 15 of them in the second half. Kayla Gibbs (Teaneck, N.J.) and Brianna Rudolph (Lynn, Mass.) each added 13, while Gibbs picked up the double-double with 15 rebounds.
 
The River Hawks came out in the third on a 15-9 run in the first five minutes to cut the deficit to 54-44, sparked by eight points from Paula Lopez (Leon, Spain) and a three from Linda Svenne (Riga, Latvia).
 
UMass Lowell carried the momentum into the fourth quarter, and trimmed the lead down to 72-68 with 4:43 left in regulation on a Saoirse Power-Cassidy (Dublin, Ireland) layup.
 
After a Lancer free throw, the visitors went on a 7-2 run to erase the deficit and knot the game at 75-75, capped off by a Lopez three-point play with 3:20 on the clock.
 
Longwood retook the lead with a 5-0 spurt, but missed three attempts from the line that kept the River Hawks in the contest and left the visitors with the final shot.
 
After a slow start by both teams, the River Hawks went on a 9-2 run over a three-minute span to hold a 9-4 lead with 3:49 left in the opening frame. Longwood then responded with a 13-0 run and took a 22-13 lead into the second quarter.
 
In her first action of the season, Power-Cassidy went on a 5-0 run to bring the River Hawks within 33-22 four minutes into the frame, but Longwood countered with a 12-4 spurt as the hosts opened up a 45-26 advantage with 49 ticks left in the first half.
 
A Katherine Smith (Fort Wayne, Indiana) and a Oda Shackelford (Edinburgh, Indiana) put back on a missed free throw, all in the final seconds of the half, closed the gap to 45-29 at the intermission.
 
Longwood had five players in double-figures led by Autumn Childress' game-high 19 points, and she grabbed 15 boards as well.
 
UMass Lowell wraps up its two-game road swing with a clash at Texas Tech on the day before Thanksgiving.