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WISE, Va. — Playing their second road game in three days, the Notre Dame College women's basketball team lost their first game of the season, 71-67 to UVA-Wise.

The Falcons shot out to a 9-0 lead early in the first half, however the Cavaliers however would fight back and even the score at 19-19 with 6:16 remaining in the first half before claiming a 27-25 lead at the half.

UVA-Wise would hold on to this lead throughout the second half despite the Falcons pushing them throughout. The Cavaliers held an 8 point lead with 8:01 remaining before  Courtney Clark hit back-to-back threes for the Falcons to pull them back into contention at 54-52.

The Falcons trailed 66-65 with 0:47 remaining before the Cavaliers converted a late layup and made three important free throws to close out the four-point victory.

Courtney Clark had a good night shooting leading NDC with 17 points on 5-of-11 from the field, 5-of-9 from three and 2-of-2 from the free throw line. Clark also recorded 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

Martha Nagbe had 11 points for the Falcons with 9 of them coming in the second half as she found her range.

Junior forward Molly Ritz had a big night on the boards for the Falcons pulling in 11 rebounds and added 6 points for the Falcons.

Senior forward Erin Entinghe continued her solid start to the season with 11 points and 8 rebounds for the Falcons.

"I think we were able to learn from tonight's game as far as consistency goes," said Head Coach Katie Hine. "We had spurts of excellent defense and crisp offense but we had more segments of complacent defense and sloppy offense. We need to play hard and smart for 40 minutes, and we just didn't do that tonight."

Overall the Falcons held advantages over the Cavaliers in rebounds (53-27) and second chance points (27-1). However the advantages the Cavaliers held in shooting proved to be the deciding factor; field goal percentage (41.5-35.8) and free throw percentage (66.7-55)

The Cavaliers were led by Reynesha Archer who had 20 points and 4 rebounds.

NDC falls to 2-1 overall and 1-1 in MEC play. The Falcons will now return home to Murphy Gymnasium to take on Bluefield College on Sunday Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. in a non-conference matchup.