CENTER VALLEY (PA) – Junior guard Brittany Battinieri tied a Delaware Valley College record with nine 3-pointers while her 42 points was one shy of the school mark, but the Aggies could not overcome a large deficit and dropped an 84-77 decision to host DeSales University in a Freedom Conference game.

The contest, which was moved to the evening to the snowstorm that hit the area, featured the two hottest teams in the conference as Delaware Valley entered with a seven-game winning streak and DeSales had won five straight of its own. In the end, the two-time defending conference champion Bulldogs improved to improved to 12-9 overall, 7-3 and tied with Delaware Valley for second place in the standings. The Aggies slipped out of a first-place tie with Manhattanville (8-2) while their overall record fell to 15-6.

Battinieri was 12-for-24 from the field, including a 9-for-19 effort from 3-point land. She tied the record held by Kate Monahan, who drained nine treys in a 1995 game against Lycoming College while the 19 attempts surpassed Monahan's mark from the Lycoming game as a contest with Columbia Union College the same season.

Battinieri was also 9-for-11 from the foul line and she became just the third player in program history to notch 40 or more points in a game. Jeanne Waznak poured in 40 points against Drew back in 1998 while Battinieri's backcourt mate, Kim Vennera, set a school-record with 43 points in a game last January, ironically against DeSales.

However, Battinieri's performance was nearly matched by the Bulldogs' Lori Lidlow as she finished with 34 points, including a 14-for-19 showing from the foul line. She notched 15 of her points in the first half as DeSales, which opened the game with a 12-0 run, shot a blistering 64.3 percent (18-for-28) from the field in the stanza and took a 47-25 lead into the intermission.

The advantage ballooned to as many as 25, 61-36, in the second half, before the Aggies scored 14 straight points to make it an 11-point contest with 8:20 remaining. Battinieri drained two treys and three foul shots in the spurt.

DeSales upped the lead back to 15 with 3:53 to go, but Delaware Valley made another run, this time a 14-5 spurt, for an 80-74 score with a minute remaining. Battinieri added 11 more in this spurt, giving her 22 points in a 10-minute span.

However, Lidlow hit three foul shots and Cherell Simmons added one more to put the game away for the Bulldogs. Battinieri, fittingly, ended the scoring with her record-tying ninth bomb with seven seconds to go. It also upped her second-half point total to 31 as she notched nearly 60 percent of her team's points in the stanza and half of their points for the game. Battinieri also finished the game with five assists and two steals.

Kim Vennera added 16 points and 10 rebounds in the loss and the senior moved into fifth place on the Aggies' all-time scoring list with 1,346 points. Emily Soper led the way on the boards with 11.

Kelly Magrann, who scored eight points in the 12-0 DeSales run to start the game, finished with 15 points and five assists. Simmons just missed out on a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds.