ST. PAUL, Minn. – With 36 seconds to play and a one-point lead for the Macalester College women's basketball team, junior guard Sydnee Smith (Gainesville, Va./Patriot) committed her fifth foul. In came first-year guard Faith Accardo (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Oaks Christian). After two missed free throws for the University of Northwestern, the Scots came down in desperate need of a score. Accardo obliged.

In Mac's time of need, Accardo stepped up and sank the dagger three from the corner, cementing Mac's first win of the season in dramatic fashion, 55-51. The win lifts the Scots to 1-4 on the season and pushes the Eagles to 0-5. It marks the first victory of head coach AD Donovan's debut season with Macalester.

The game started out ugly. After each team scored a layup in the first two minutes, they both went ice cold for the next three and a half, until the Eagles sank a three. From there, the first quarter became a back-and-forth affair, with the Scots ending on top 10-9 after a layup in the final seconds from sophomore guard Emma Karlin (Rockville, Md./Richard Montgomery). Junior guard Mary Daley (Cumberland, R.I./Bishop Feehan) led Mac with four points, three rebounds, two assists and three steals in the opening frame.

In the second quarter, both teams' offenses woke up. Daley played most of the quarter and powered her team with four assists. Though the Scots went down by four — their largest deficit of the game — Accardo, the beneficiary of two Daley dimes, logged seven points in the quarter to put them back on top.

Her first was a spinning layup in the lane, followed on the next play by a kickout three-pointer from Daley after an offensive rebound to give Mac the lead. A couple minutes later, after a pair of Eagle layups put the Scots down by one, Daley found Accardo again to put Macalester back in front, where it stayed, up 26-24 headed into the half.

After intermission, Mac went to work building on its lead. First-year guard Megan Matthews (Boulder, Colo./Boulder) put the Scots up by seven with a layup halfway through the third quarter. Though the Eagles chipped into the advantage, sophomore forward Cady Davis (Minneapolis, Minn./Roosevelt) swiped the ball away in the paint, and on the ensuing possession, Matthews dribbled around a screen to pull up from the elbow and give Mac the 43-37 advantage it carried into the final frame.

In the fourth quarter, the Eagles wasted no time hitting a three-pointer to cut the Scots' lead to three. A Karlin layup on the next possession held the Eagles at bay, but the Scots couldn't get much more separation and Northwestern couldn't get any closer down the stretch. With the lead cut to three and under four minutes to play, Matthews pulled up from downtown to rebuild the advantage.

A couple possessions later, Smith dropped in a layup. With 2:30 to go, Mac had a seven-point advantage. Then, back-to-back midrange jumpers cut the lead to three, and a steal and fastbreak layup pulled the Eagles within one. Smith committed her fifth and final foul, but Northwestern bailed out the Scots with two missed free throws. Accardo came into the game and iced it with her three.

Accardo finished with a team-high 12 points to go with five rebounds. It is the second game in a row where she has led the Scots in scoring. Daley logged 11 points, six rebounds, seven assists and three steals. Smith registered 10 points and six rebounds. Matthews had 10 points, three boards and two steals.

While the Eagles took 10 more threes than the Scots, both teams made five: Mac shot 5-of-19 from distance. Northwestern also got five more free throws than the Scots but went 6-of-11 while Mac went 6-of-6.

The women's basketball team returns to action on Tuesday, Nov. 25 against UW-Superior for its last non-conference matchup before MIAC play begins in December. The game will tip off at 7 p.m. in the Leonard Center.