KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Washburn women's basketball's season came to an end Wednesday afternoon as its comeback bid was turned away by Nebraska-Kearney in the opening round of the MIAA Tournament with the Ichabods falling 72-65.  

Washburn finishes the season 13-16 overall after going 8-14 in the MIAA and finishing 10th in the regular season.  

The Lopers came out of the gates knocking down shots as the jumped out to an 11-0 lead in the first 2:46 of the game. The Ichabods got on the board with 6:13 left in the opening quarter on a driving layup by Aubree Dewey. Nebraska-Kearney (19-10, 12-10 MIAA) kept firing offensively going 3-3 from deep and shooting 11-16 overall in the first quarter building a 29-13 lead.  

Washburn opened the second quarter witha 7-2 run capped off by a 3-pointer from Gabi Giovannetti with 7:46 left before half which cut the lead to 11. The Lopers responded with a 7-2 run of their own. The Ichabods were able to cut one point off the lead with Aniah Wayne knocking down a 3-pointer late in the quarter with WU going into halftime trailing 42-27.  

Out of the halftime break Washburn picked up the pressure to a full 94 feet, helping spark a 10-3 run to open the quarter with six points coming on a pair of triples by Lakyn Schieferecke. The lead was cut to single digits at the 6:17 mark after a layup from Yiibari Nwidadah which was part of a 6-0 run with a bucket by Wayne making it a five-point game. Over the final 3:43 of the quarter Nebraska-Kearney scored the final 10 points to bring the lead back up to 15 going into the fourth.  

Dewey scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter for Washburn, including the first five for either team. After a steal by Dewey she assisted Madelyn Amekporfor for a fast break layup to make it 65-56 with 6:29 left. Dewey picked off another ball and took it herself to make it a three-point game with 2:49 left. Nwidadah was able to knock down a free throw at the 1:52 mark to make it 67-65. The Ichabods would be unable to get anything going after that and the Lopers connected on free throws to secure a 72-65 first round win.  

Washburn shot 24-72 (33.3%) for the game and were 7-31 from behind the arc. Nebraska-Kearney was 23-56 (41.1%) from the floor while shooting 22-24 from the line and 4-9 from deep. 

The Lopers used a 53-31 rebounding advantage to earn an extra 11 free throw attempts. The Ichabods evened up the possession battle by turning the ball over only five times, a season low, and forcing UNK into 19 giveaways.  

Aubree Dewey led Washburn scoring 20 points on 8-18 shooting. She played a full 40 minutes and also came away with three steals and dished out a game-high seven assists. Yiibari Nwidadah had 11 points and five rebounds while dealing with foul trouble and Aniah Wayne had 10 points with a pair of 3-pointers off the bench. In their final games as Ichabods Lakyn Schieferecke and Mackenzie Gamble scored seven and two points respectively.  

Shiloh McCool paced Nebraska-Kearney with 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Meg Burns had 10 points and a trio of Lopers had nine.