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ROCHESTER, Mich. – Trailing by as many as 19 points in the second half, the IUPUI women’s basketball team orchestrated a furious comeback and clawed back within three points, but the Jaguars couldn’t get over the hump as it fell at Oakland, 54-50, Saturday afternoon in Summit League action.

IUPUI (6-10; 1-3 Summit) outscored the Golden Grizzlies 33-20 in the second half behind Emily Phillips’ 10 second-period points, but Bethany Watterworth proved to be too much accounting for 27 of OU’s 54 points.

“The ladies fought back, which was huge because I didn’t feel like we played like we practiced. We practiced really well this week and I thought we would come out and play really well,” said head coach Austin Parkinson. “Defensively, a couple of our better players didn’t guard early in the game. At halftime we made some adjustments – Nevena (Markovic) was more aggressive and Emily Phillips played like the player we thought she would be. At the end of the day, one player beat you, and that’s frustrating because that was the difference in the game.”

Phillips scored a career-high 16 points on 8-of-17 shooting and was the only IUPUI player to score in double figures. The Jaguars three leading scorers - Kerah Nelson, Katie Comello, and Nevena Markovic - came into the game averaging 36.0 ppg in conference action, but the trio struggled shooting and combined to score 23 points.

“I was proud of (Emily). She had a lot better focus in practice the last week. I didn’t know she would have 16 points, but she did a much better job pushing the ball,” Parkinson said about his point guard.

Both teams committed careless turnovers and shot poorly early, but the Jaguars were able to stay within a bucket at the eight-minute mark following a Dawn Luster lay-up that cut the Jaguars deficit to 18-15.

While forcing the Golden Grizzlies to struggle from the floor early, Oakland began to get hot from the floor thanks in part to Watterworth.

Watterworth buried a three to push the Oakland lead to six points, 21-6, and scored seven more points during a 15-0 run that widened the OU lead to 33-15 with 2:52 remaining in the half.

A Phillips lay-up with 1:51 on the clock snapped the Oakland run, but the Golden Grizzlies managed to tack on a free throw in the final minute that doubled up the Jags, 34-17, which would be the score entering halftime.

Watterworth equaled IUPUI’s scoring output by herself in the opening half scoring 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-4 shooting from three.

The Jags managed to shoot just 24.1 percent (7-of-29) in the opening 20 minutes, including 10 percent (1-of-10) from three, compared to 50.0 percent shooting (13-of-26) from the field and 57.1 percent (4-of-7) from behind-the-arc for the Golden Grizzlies.

Needing defensive stops to help spur a run, the Jaguars hit just one of their first seven attempts from the field to start the second half, but Oakland managed to only increase its halftime lead by two points, 38-19, at the 15:06 mark.

However, the Jags responded hitting eight of their next 12 attempts from the floor and held the Golden Grizzlies scoreless for nearly seven minutes leading IUPUI on a 16-0 run that trimmed its deficit to three points, 38-35, with 9:00 to play. Phillips was the catalyst during the run scoring half of the points, including six in transition.

After 17 first-half points, Watterworth went scoreless for the opening 13:11 before scoring 11 of Oakland’s next 12 points. Despite Watterworth heating up, IUPUI used a pair of conventional three-point plays and a triple from Katie Comello to offset Watterworth’s scoring and keep its deficit at three points, 49-46, with 3:45 to play.

Down the stretch, the Jaguars had a few opportunities to pull even but misfired and an offensive put-back by Victoria Lipscomb with 30 seconds to play proved to be the dagger as Oakland held on for a 54-50 victory.

“Down the stretch – we are getting there. We are putting ourselves in position (to win). It’s just on the road you have got to take care of (the ball),” Parkinson said. “Obviously we put ourselves in position but we just came up short again.”

“It’s the difference between last year and this year. We have the players to not only play in these games, but win these games,” Parkinson added. “The difference is we never learned how to do it. Last game, we got up 16 points against Western Illinois and they came back on us. We have to find a way to finish and once we do, then it will snowball and we will start to gain some confidence.”

The Jaguars close out their weekend road trip Monday evening when they travel to Fort Wayne, Ind., to take on IPFW at 7 p.m. Scott McCauley will have the call beginning around 6:55 p.m. on IUPUIJags.com.