WAVERLY, Iowa-- The No. 16/18 Wartburg women's basketball team succumbed to Luther 75-63 for its first American Rivers Conference loss of the season Wednesday.

Senior Adrienne Boettger (Cedar Falls) led the team with 14 points and junior Emma Gerdes (Cedar Falls) joined her in double figures with 10 points.



The Norse opened the first three minutes on a 10-4 run and led 21-10 at the end of the first quarter. A three from sophomore Payton Draper (Waverly) with 2:46 left in the second made it a six-point game (26-20), but Luther answered with a 5-0 run over the next minute to push its lead to 11.

The Orange and Black used a strong third quarter effort as they battled back from trailing by 12 with 8:31 left to tie it at 42 all on a trey by freshman Bailey Brown (Davenport) with 3:03 to go. Boettger gave Wartburg the 44-43 lead with her layup with 1:30 left. The Norse answered with a trey to take the two-point lead. Sophomore Kaitlyn Volesky (Mount Vernon) evened the game again with her layup with 0:50 left. Junior Amanda Brainerd (DeWitt) helped the Knights take the two-point lead as she made both of her free throws with 0:30 left. Luther made one of its two free throw attempts to slice Wartburg's lead to one (48-47) at the end of the third.

The fourth quarter was back and forth until the Norse used a 10-0 run midway through to take the 10 point lead. Brainerd would later cut the margin to four on her two free throws with 3:14 left, but Luther once again built its lead to double digits for the last 1:27.

The Orange and Black held two of the three team shooting percentage categories: three-point field goal percentage (.316 vs. .235) and free throw percentage (.731 vs. .680).

Wartburg takes to the road for the next two games. The Knights will play at Nebraska Wesleyan Saturday at 2 p.m.