Nearly 11 months after Simpson women’s basketball guard Regan Freland hit a game-winning shot at Wartburg last year as the Storm won in double-overtime, Freland has once again broken the hearts of Knights fans as #4 Simpson forced overtime on a buzzer-beating three-point bucket from Freland, and led the squad to a 78-73 win to stay undefeated in American Rivers Conference play.

The Storm offense couldn’t find much of a rhythm throughout the contest despite holding a lead for over 24 minutes, leading 17-10 after the first and 38-35 at the halftime break. The Knights would go on a run in the third, taking a 51-50 lead into the fourth, and the Storm found themselves trailing by five points with just seconds remaining when Anna Wanek hit a putback shot to get the deficit to three.

After a subsequent foul, the Knights missed both free-throw chances at icing the contest to keep it a one possession contest, and Freland came through in the clutch to force overtime. In the extra period, Cassie Nash took over scoring five points and led the Storm to the victory. Nash led all scorers with 16 points, one of four Storm athletes in double-figures.

The Storm men faced an early 20-1 run by the Knights and trailed 20-3 in the opening minutes and never recovered in their 81-67 defeat in conference play Saturday. The Storm took a 2-0 lead before the Knights got hot from the field to build the lead, and despite the Storm fighting throughout the first half and trimming the lead down to nine, the first-place Knights built a 14-point lead at halftime. After building a lead as high as 28 in the second half, the Storm began to slowly come back but it was too little too late. Tajen Ross scored 17 to lead the team.

The Storm women are now 17-1 overall and 9-0 in conference play, while the men are 4-15 and 1-9. Both teams travel to Luther Monday evening beginning at 5:30pm.