The Belmont Abbey women's basketball team pulled out a 73-65 victory over Queens on Saturday night despite a late Royals run that cut the Crusaders advantage to two with 56 seconds left in the game. A McKenzie Owen layup and four made free throws by Caitlyn Ranson sealed the win for the Crusaders in the game's final seconds. The win improves the Crusaders to 8-8 overall and 4-3 in Conference Carolinas. With the loss Queens falls to 4-12 overall and 2-5 in conference play.

The Crusaders took the first lead of the game on Paula Regalado's layup 33 seconds into the game. A 12-3 Queens spurt left the Crusaders trailing by seven, but a 12-4 Abbey run made the score put the Abbey back on top. Queens responded with another flurry, this one a six-point surge to take a five-point lead, but the Crusaders ended the half by outscoring Queens 20-11 to build a 37-33 lead at the half.

The second half began with a pair of free throws by Melisa Foures to push the Abbey advantage to six before a 6-0 Queens spurt tied the game at 43. Queens took a 49-48 lead on a traditional three-point play by Shanel Sweet with 13:02 left. An 18-8 surge gave the Abbey a 65-55 lead with 4:04 to play, but Queens fought back, closing the gap to just a pair with only 56 seconds remaining.

After Owen's missed a layup, she grabbed the offensive rebound and the Abbey called timeout. Out of the timeout, Owen sank a layup with 26 seconds left to push the lead back to four. On the Royals next possession, Sweet missed a layup, and the ball was knocked around for several seconds before Candace Fox emerged from the pile and drove down the floor and was eventually fouled. She missed the front end of the one-and-one, but Owen snared the rebound and passed off to Ranson, who was then fouled. She was awarded two free throws and earned two more after a Royals technical foul. Ranson's four free throws with eight seconds left, which were all four of her second half points, capped the scoring and made the final 73-65.

Kelsey Long led all scorers with 20 points on eight of 12 shooting with six assists in 38 minutes. Ranson established her career-high with 19 points, 15 in the first half on five of six shooting from three-poking range, with an assist in 31 minutes. Owen registered her first career double double, tying her career-high with 18 points and pulling down ten rebounds, one shy of her career-high, in just 24 minutes. Fox handed out six assists.

Belmont Abbey shot 48.3 percent from the floor, its finest output in six games, and won the rebounding battle 39-29. Queens, which was led in scoring by Sweet and Shonice Pettaway with 14 points apiece, shot 40.3 percent from the field.