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The High Point University women's basketball team led by as much as eight late in the first half before falling to Liberty, 73-55, in the Big South semifinals Saturday afternoon. Junior Jurica Hargraves scored 10 points to lead all Panther scorers on the afternoon.

"I am proud of the way our kids played today,” head coach Tooey Loy said. “They battled for 40 minutes and did everything we asked of them. Liberty was a very good team today, as good as I have seen them. When you play them you know they are going to pound the glass, but they made shots tonight too. They are tough to deal with when they are hitting threes and 17 or 18 footers. I am proud oif our team, I thought we battled and gave ourselves a chance.”

High Point trailed by one, 7-6, five minutes into the game when Hargraves and freshman Erin Reynolds connected on back-to-back threes to put the Panthers up 12-7. Hargraves took a pass out of the post and hit a long three from the left elbow and on the following inbounds junior Amy Dodd stole the ball. HPU passed the ball around before Dodd fed Reynolds in the left corner and the freshman connected on a three.

The Panthers still held a five-point lead, 21-16, with eight minutes left in the half when four-straight free throws by the Flames drew Liberty to within one.

Junior Frances Fields and sophomore Shamia Brown answered right back with back-to-back layups, sparking a 7-0 run by HPU to open a 28-20 lead with 4:35 left until halftime. After Brown hit her second layup, LU was forced to burn a timeout.

Out of the break, Liberty's Devon Brown scored four-straight points as LU went on a 10-2 run to pull even, 30-30, with just under a minute left in the half. Hargraves hit a runner at the other end to go back up two, but the Flames came right back with a layup by Kylie Beecher and a free throw to take a 33-32 lead into the half.

Devon Brown and Amber Mays each had nine points to lead all scorers at the half for Liberty while Shamia Brown led High Point with eight points.

Liberty opened the second half on a 6-0 run, extending its lead to seven, 39-32, before junior LaTeisha Dean connected on a layup and Fields hit two free throws to make the score 39-36 with a little under 17 minutes left in the contest.

Up three, the Flames used a 9-2 run to extend its advantage to 10, 48-38 with 12 minutes left in the game. The Panthers were held without a field goal for 4:28 before Reynolds connected a a short jumper from the right side to make the score 48-40.

Liberty continued to slowly expand its lead and with a little over five minutes left in the contest a three by Mays gave the Flames a 62-47 lead and forced an HPU timeout.

Out of the timeout, Liberty continued its hot shooting, outscoring HPU 11-8 down the stretch to pick up the 73-55 win.

After shooting 51.9 percent (14-27) in the first half, the Panthers shot just 30 percent (9-25) in the second half while Liberty shot 62.5 percent (15-24).

Dean, Fields and Brown all scored eight points for HPU and Dodd contributed five points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals.

Mays scored a career-high 21 points for Liberty which improves to 26-5 this season. The Flames will play No. 1 Gardner-Webb in the Big South Championship on Sunday at 2 p.m.

The Panthers finished 17-14 on the season with a 9-7 mark in the Big South. The 17 wins is the most for HPU since the 2006-07 season when the team went 18-12.

“ This has been a great season for us,” Loy said. “We did some amazing things. Heading down to Florida and winning that tournament and I think we put the stamp on this tournament with the shot last night and winning in overtime. We return all but two seniors next season and have a lot of good players coming back. We have a great recruiting class coming in which will help us get bigger. We are looking forward to next season.”