A layup by junior Hannah Lilly with 18 seconds left in overtime gave the No. 17-ranked Emory women's basketball team a dramatic 62-61 victory over Case Western Reserve Friday evening.  With the win the Eagles raised their overall record to 20-3 overall, 10-2 in the University Athletic Association, while the Spartans slipped to 15-8 overall, 7-5 in the league.  Emory remained tied for first in the league with Rochester who defeated Carnegie Mellon.

Emory trailed by five points, 49-44, with 5:37 left in regulation but regrouped to rattle off an 8-0 run to claim a 52-49 edge with 1:21 on the clock following a pair of free throws by Lilly.  The score remained that way until the waning seconds when the Spartans' Brooke Orcutt hit a three pointer from the corner that forced the extra session. 

Case got off to a fast start in overtime, using back-to-back triples from Erica Iafelice and Orcutt to take a six-point margin with 3:53 left.   Emory used three free throws by Danielle Landry over a 10-second span to creep back to within three points and then knotted the score with 2:36 remaining on the strength of a clutch triple from freshman Ilene Tsao.  Tsao put the Eagles up by a pair following a layup with 1:30 on the clock but another trey by Orcutt allowed the visiting Spartans to take a one-point lead with 1:08 remaining.   After an Emory miss, Lilly poked the ball away from a Case player to Misha Jackson who in turn fired the ball to Lilly who put Emory ahead for good.   Case had the last possession but turned the ball over with less than one second left.   The win enabled Emory to post its first 20-win season since the 1996-97 campaign.

Savannah Morgan led the Eagles' scoring effort with 16 points, hitting seven-of-16 from the field, while also coming up with six steals.  Landry was the other Emory double-figure scorer with 13 points, 11 coming after the first half, and tied Misha Jackson for game honors with nine boards.  Though Case enjoyed an advantage in field goal shooting, connecting on 40 percent (22-of-55) compared to Emory's 32.9 percent (25-of-76), the Spartans were harassed into 32 turnovers with Emory totaling 17 steals.

Behind Morgan's 11 points, Emory held a 29-27 lead at halftime.  Both teams found the opposing defense a challenge with Emory hitting 35.9 percent (14-of-39) from the field compared to the Spartans' effort of 34.5 percent.   The Eagles led by as many as eight points on two occasions, the final time being a 16-8 cushion with 10:45 left in the stanza following a bucket by Morgan.  Emory maintained the advantage and when Jackson hit a jumper with 5:43 remaining, the Eagles led by a 24-19 count.  A pair of free throws by CWRU's Brooke Orcutt cut Emory's lead to one point, but a triple by Morgan pushed Emory ahead, 24-21, with 2:44 on the clock.  A steal and subsequent layup by freshman Khadijah Sayyid gave the Eagles a six-point cushion but the Spartans scored the final four points of the stanza.   Senior Erica Iafelice scored seven points to lead the Case scoring attack.

Emory returns to action on Sunday (Feb. 17) when it hosts Carnegie Mellon.