Auburn, AL – The Wofford women's basketball team showed great resiliency and a ton of heart in their season opener against Auburn, in which they lost 84-82.

Wofford jumped out to an early 4-0 lead after Da'Ja Green knocked down her first two shots of the night. After Auburn tied the game at 4-4, Lilly Hatton swatted away a shot from the Tigers' point guard and notched her first career collegiate block. At the end of the 1^st quarter the score was tied at 11-11. Green had nine points and Chloe Wanink added the other two.

To start the 2^nd quarter, Wanink hit her first three of the game to send the Terriers out in front 14-13. Auburn outscored Wofford 9-3 up until the media timeout, where the Tigers led 22-17. Both teams started trading shots, and at the end of the 1^st half Wofford trailed 35-24.

"We came here to win…chip away, chip away, chip away" were the words Coach Garrity used during the break to give his team some energy and motivation to start the 2^nd half. The teams went back-and-forth with Wanink hitting a corner three-pointer and Cairo Booker making a tough jump shot to cut the Auburn lead to 10, making the score 40-30. The Tigers would go on a 9-2 run and eventually jump out to a 53-37 lead, the largest deficit the Terriers faced. Back-to-back threes from Wanink and Booker, and free throws from Booker and (Lawren) Cook, brought the game back within 10 where the Terriers trailed 58-48 going into the final quarter.

With a tired Auburn squad and a fired-up Wofford bench, the Terriers began to nip away at the heels of the Tigers. Clutch free-throws from Cook and another triple from Wanink made it a one-score game, 62-59. With two more free-throws from Lilly Hatton and Chloe's eighth make from beyond the arch, the Terriers saw themselves with a 66-65 lead. With just under five minutes to go Auburn re-took their lead, but Wofford was not done fighting. Chloe Wanink hit her final 3-pointer with just six second remaining with the score 82-79. Wofford looked for the steal but ended up fouling and the Tigers made their free-throws to give themselves a five-point lead. A Da'Ja Green bucket was all for not as the Terriers fell 84-82.

"That's a tournament team and we handled ourselves very well, said coach Jimmy Garrity. We didn't come in here to just compete; we came in here to win. We came together, started making simple plays, and started knocking shots down, and that will give us confidence in the future. We're going to leave this game with a lot of confidence, and this is going to fuel us to get better."

Chloe Wanink led all shooters with 28 points, 24 of them coming from behind the arch. Da'Ja Green added 25 for the black and gold, while Jamari McDavid had a team-high eight rebounds and Cairo Booker had five assists and four steals.

Wofford returns to the court with a matchup against Wisconsin on Sunday, November 10. Tipoff will be at 3:00 p.m.