WICHITA - The Newman women's basketball team led for nearly 38 minutes Thursday night, but St. Mary's hit some key free throws down the stretch to steal a 40-38 heart-breaker fron the Jets on Newman's home court in Fugate Gymnasium. Monique Pitts led Newman with 10 points and nine rebounds in the game.

Newman (5-14, 3-5 Heartland) made the first move when Monique Pitts drained a short range jumper to give the Jets an early 2-0 advantage. A Jessica Forshee putback off a Melissa Brockleman missed lay-up gave Newman a 4-0 edge in the first minute of the game, but St. Mary's (15-5, 7-1 Heartland) battled back to within one just two minutes later. Newman pushed the lead out to five over the next five minutes, but the Rattlers had an answer for everything, keeping the margin under seven for the remainder of the first half. By the end of the first half, the Rattlers had cut the Newman lead to three, 22-19.

A three-pointer by St. Mary's Kriten Williams wiped away the Newman lead on the Rattlers' first possession of the second half, and tied the game at 22-22. Neither team could find a way to put their counterparts away in the second half, as the lead for either team never exceeded two for the entire half. The final 20 minutes of play saw six ties and nine lead changes. St. Mary's claimed the final lead, 39-38, on a Liz Boyd free throw with 54 seconds remaining. Chastity Noble added another free throw with 18 seconds to play to take the 40-38 lead they would go on to win by.

Monique Pitts led the Jets in both scoring and rebounding, finishing one board short of a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Hadley Freeman added eight pionts and five rebounds, while Jessica Forshee finished with a seven-point outing.

Kristen Williams led the Rattlers with 15 points, while Mareta Bailey finished with a team-high eight rebounds for St. Mary's

With the loss, the Jets fall to 5-14 on the season, but remain in fourth place in the Heartland Conference with a 3-5 record. They are back in action Saturday afternoon when conference-leading Incarnate Word pays a visit to Fugate Gymnasium. Tip-off at the first-ever "Blue Out Fugate" event is slated for 2 p.m. Admission to the game is free with two cans of food to be donated to Newman's Help 4 Haiti campaign.