The High Point University women's basketball team fell tonight to Big South rival Liberty, 62-53. HPU falls to 17-6 (8-2 Big South) while Liberty improves to 18-5 (9-1 Big South). With tonight's win the Flames move into first place in the league.

Leading the Panthers was Raven Truslow with 15 points. Freshman Caitlin Thys posted nine.

For the Flames Moriah Frazee led with 19 points while Allyson Fasnacht had 15.

Liberty held the slight advantage on the boards, out rebound High Point, 49-43. Karolina Piotrkiewicz pulled down 10 rebounds for the Flames while Candyce Sellars led the Panthers with nine.

The Flames jumped out to an early 5-0 lead before Thys put the Panthers on the board. Liberty controlled much of the opening 10 minutes and were ahead by as many as eight points before High Point staged a 10-1 run sparked by a tip-in from Amber Manuel. High Point took its first lead (23-22) of the game at the 5:10 mark with a jumper from Truslow. Liberty rallied in the final minutes of the opening period to take a two point, 31-29, lead into the break.

Coming out of the intermission, Thys hit a jumper to knot the game at 31. Liberty responded with a lay-up from Piotrkiewicz. The Flames would pull ahead by seven at 15:09 before HPU went on a 7-0 run to tie the game at 10:54. Liberty would hit 16 free-throws (16-of-18) over the final 10 minutes to seal the victory.

The Flames were 26-of-38 from the line while the Panthers were 1-of-4.

"It was a good effort tonight," said High Point University head coach Tooey Loy. "We didn't shoot the ball well, we missed some easy shots and some things just didn't go our way. We have to bounce back and get ready for the last stretch of the regular season and the conference tournament."

High Point will hit the court again on Wednesday when they travel to Radford to take on the Highlanders. Game time is set for 7 p.m.