The Simpson Storm women’s basketball team stuck with #7 Wartburg throughout the entire contest but fell short in an American Rivers Conference contest Saturday losing 83-72, while the men came back from down 26 to take a second half lead but also couldn’t pick up a win as they fell 79-75 in a doubleheader heard live on 94.3 KNIA.

The Storm women fell behind by 10 points after the first quarter and trailed by 12 at the half 41-29, but would outplay the Knights in the third quarter getting the score tied twice before Wartburg made timely three-point shots to squash any Simpson run, and then shot 11-12 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to put the game away. Haley Rasmussen scored 28 points to lead the Storm.

The Simpson men had a dreadful start, falling behind 15-0 in the first four minutes of the game, then trailed by as much as 26 points in the first half before going on a run to get the deficit down to 17 at halftime trailing 48-31. Simpson then took over in the second half, going on an 11-0 run to take a lead by as much as four with less than 10 minutes to go, however they would run out of gas and Wartburg began to pound the paint and the Storm couldn’t hold on. Simpson was outrebounded 41-25 in the loss, and Andrew Gibb led the team in scoring with 21.

The women are now 4-5 and 2-2 in ARC play, while the men are 4-5 and 0-4. Both teams next travel to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to play in the Cruzin Classic holiday tournament.