Fredericton, NB - Vanessa Soffee (Fredericton, NB) scored 14 points and came good in overtime to propel the St. Thomas Tommies women's basketball team to a 72-71 win over the Mount Allison Mounties in the season opener.

"That's what you need her to do in those big moments and she was outstanding in the second half," coach, Fred Connors, said about his guard.

The Tommies did not have the best opening to the game and found themselves having to claw their way back to parity at the end of the first quarter.

The first half of the game was dominated by Mounties forward, Reese Nowlan (Miramichi, NB). She scored 20 points in the first two quarters and was the Tommies' chief tormenter. The second quarter saw Mount Allison go on an 11-0 run. This should have put daylight between the teams; however, STU fought back valiantly. The STU defense worked extremely hard and were able to hold Nowlan to only seven points in the second half.

Soffee, Mary Besselink (Kingston, ON) and Madison Owens (Fredericton, NB) were the ones to push the team on. Besselink put up a crucial 13 points and Owens had 14. These three came up with the important points and defensive plays.

The overtime period belonged to STU and particularly, Soffee. She converted two free throws to give STU the lead in overtime and then finally brought the game to a frantic finish when she shot a field goal and the Mounties did not have enough time to get the ball up the other end of the court.

"We were trying to do too much in the first half, we weren't generating good looks and we just talked about keeping it simple and getting back to being us," Connors added.

STU's next game will be away at UKC next Saturday while Mount Allison will host Crandall on Friday evening.