REC CENTER – The Lady Peregrines closed out the regular season and said goodbye to the home faithful for the 2006-07 campaign. The University of St. Francis beat the Lady Peregrines, 69-47, in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference contest.Both teams could be facing each other Tuesday in the first round of the CCAC tournament. As of press time, the place and time for the Lady Peregrines’ next game had yet to be determined.

Trailing 36-26 at the break, the Lady Peregrine offense cooled considerably. Senior co-captain Jessica Hamman (Highland) gave PUC its first field goal of the second half with nearly seven minutes gone by, and yet the Lady Peregrines (6-23 overall, 1-11 CCAC) had closed the gap to 43-34.

But over the course of the next seven-plus minutes, the Lady Saints (17-13, 8-4) made a 19-9 run and put the game out of reach. During the seven minute stretch, the Lady Peregrines committed eight turnovers accounting for a dozen Lady Saint points.

“I thought we were doing a good job of staying within our game and not trying to get into a running game with Saint Francis,” Head Coach Dennis Smith said. “But we tried to force the ball and speed up our game and we’re not very good when try to play another team’s style of ball.”

The Lady Peregrines were led by junior guard Linsey Smith (Lake Central) with 12 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals. Smith, the team’s leading scorer in 13 games this season, is averaging 12.9 points per game in the CCAC, slightly above teammate Hamman who is at 12.6. Hamman finished with 11 points, two assists, two steals and one shot block. Hamman, the team’s leading rebounder with 7.8 per game, had her season high grabbing 13 boards in the loss. She ranks seventh overall in the CCAC.

Junior co-captain Shannon Dugan (Mother McAuley) scored nine points and grabbed three rebounds, while junior forward/center Stephanie Peacock (Rockford Boylan) also scored nine, grabbed six rebounds and had a pair of steals. LaKeisha Hurst (Dover, Del.) was the only other Lady Peregrine to score finishing with six points.