A late rally was not enough to help the Valparaiso women's basketball overcome its first loss of the season on Tuesday night.

After trailing by as many as 16 in the second half, the Crusaders rallied to within five before falling 71-64 to Ball State in Muncie.

The loss drops Valparaiso to 3-1 after the Crusaders had won their first three games of the season for the first time in program history.

"I thought that we fought hard and we tried to come back," Valparaiso coach Keith Freeman said. "There were a couple points in the game where we were right there and had a shot or two gone our way, maybe things would've been different. I was proud of the kids from that standpoint."

Lauren Kenney led four Crusaders in double figures with 16 points, while Ashley Varner had 14 points and nine rebounds.

The Crusaders closed a nine-point halftime deficit to four points after a Kelly Peller (Chesterton) 3-pointer, but the Cardinals went on an 18-6 run to stretch the lead to 16 with just under nine minutes remaining.

During the run, Valparaiso junior Kelly Watts (E.C. Central) was whistled for a technical foul for coming onto the floor while the ball was in play.

"She was ready to check in and then the scorer table buzzed her in, but the official didn't acknowledge it and she got a technical," Freeman said. "A lot of things happened like that. We need to be better than the situations in the game and we have to rise up to the challenge of the road."

Betsy Adams had 13 points for the Crusaders while Skyler Gick had 10 points, but the pair combined to shoot just 7-of-27 from the field. Their shooting woes were indicative of the entire team as Valparaiso shot just 35.8 percent from the field (24-of-67) and 27.8 percent from beyond the arc (5-of-18).

"Hopefully we learned a lesson not to shoot so many 3-pointers in the early going," Freeman said. "We didn't get aggressive until late."

The Crusaders have eight days until their next game and Freeman has given the team off until Saturday for Thanksgiving.

"We have a real tough stretch coming up here," Freeman said. "We'll learn from this and we'll come back on Saturday."

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

Ball State 71, Valparaiso 64

Lauren Kenney led four players in double figures with 16 points.