BURLINGTON, Vt. – With less than four minutes to play in regulation, the Cornell women's basketball team trailed Vermont, 67-53, as the Catamounts put on an offensive clinic in front of a large and raucous crowd at Patrick Gymnasium. Undeterred by the fact Vermont had answered every big Cornell shot with a run of its own, a  scrappy Big Red team turned up the defensive effort with a full court press and went on a 14-0 run over the final 3:30 to play to send the game to overtime, before eventually winning, 90-87, in double overtime.
 
Cornell's comeback became with an offensive putback by sophomore forward Nia Marshall with 3:31 to play. The Big Red then forced a turnover with Christine Kline coming up with the steal and Marshall converting on the other end. Another Catamount turnover led to another jumper from Marshall, before a defensive stop led to a jumper by Kerri Moran to make it a six-point deficit with 1:30 to play. Kline fouled Vermont's Jordan Eisler to stop the clock and Eisler missed the front-end of a one-and-one and Marshall came down with the rebound. Kline converted with a layup on the other end and Aston stole the ball on the Vermont inbound. Marshall was fouled and made both shots to make it a one-possession game and then registered another steal that resulted in Moran's game-tying bucket with 40 seconds to play.
 
Vermont turned the ball over once again for its sixth turnover in the final 3:20 of the game, giving the Big Red a chance to win it in regulation, but the visitors came up short and the squads headed into overtime tied at 67-67.  
 
Cornell (7-5) got out to a quick start in the first overtime session, winning the tip and scoring to take its first lead since the 5:00 mark of the game, but the visitors soon found themselves trailing 80-77 with time running down on the clock. Marshall, who finished the evening with a career-high 36 points, proved to be the unlikely hero, banking in a step-back 3-pointer with 2.2 seconds on the clock to send the game into a second overtime session. The trey was the first 3-point attempt of Marshall's collegiate career.
 
Marshall then opened the scoring in the second overtime with a layup and the teams traded buckets and a single free throw each before Vermont tied the game at 85-85 midway through the extra session.
 
Nicholle Aston nailed a 15-foot jumper from the left elbow to cap her scoring on the evening at 18 points, but Vermont's leading scorer Sydney Smith answered on the Catamounts next trip down the floor to make it 87-87 with 1:43 to play. Smith finished with 22 points.
 
Cornell took the ball into its offensive set and saw two shots go off the mark, but both Taylor DePalma and Moran pulled down a rebound to keep the ball in the Big Red's hands and Marshall eventually laid in her 14th field goal of the game to give the visitors the 89-87 lead. The 14 field goals are good for second all-time in Cornell history for field goals in a single game and have not been accomplished since Keri Farley hit 14 shots vs. Harvard on March 3, 1995. Marshall's 36 points also rank third all-time in Big Red history and are the most scored by a Cornell player since Farley set the school record with 41 points in that same game vs. the Crimson.
 
Following a Vermont timeout, Smith looked to seal the game for the home team, but her 3-point attempt was off the mark and Moran came down with the crucial rebound, was fouled and made one-of-two free throws with 12 seconds to play to hand Cornell the 90-87 victory. Moran finished with 13 points.
 
Both Marshall and Aston finished with double doubles, tallying 11 and 12 rebounds, respectively, while Megan LeDuc registered seven points, five steals and three assists.
 
Cornell forced Vermont into 26 turnovers with 17 steals, leading to 26 Big Red points, and had a 50-43 advantage on the boards. The visitors' largest lead in the contest was four points, while the Catamounts were up by as many as 16 points with 13:34 to play in the contest.
 
Vermont (3-9) playing in its first game in 10 days, showed that it had worked on its shooting during the break, knocking down 46.7 percent from the field (14-30) and a blistering 54.5 percent from beyond the arc (6-11) to get out to a 38-27 halftime lead. It was just the second time all season that Cornell trailed an opponent at the half.
 
The Big Red shot just 33.3 percent both overall (11-33) and from 3-point range (1-3) in the first half but forced the Catamounts into 10 turnovers to stay in the game.
 
Cornell shot better in the second half, bolstered by its 6-for-7 performance over the final 3:30 to finish at 48.5 percent from the floor. The Big Red was even better in overtime, shooting 56.3 percent overall to push its game performance to 43.9 percent for the game.
 
The Catamounts finished the game at 50 percent overall but after hitting 6-of-11 treys in the first half, connected on just 3-of-14 over the final 30 minutes of the game to finish at 36 percent.
 
Vermont won the opening tip of the contest but Kline drew an offensive charge and Moran hit a deep jumper to put Cornell up 2-0. The Big Red offense stalled on the next few possessions but some stingy defense held the Catamounts at bay and an offensive put-back by Aston returned the lead to the visitors and a runner in the lane from Kline put Cornell up, 6-2.
 
A pair of made free throws by Kylie Butler and a trey by Kayla Burchill gave Vermont its first lead of the game with five minutes gone but LeDuc hit a foul line jumper on the Big Red's next possession and a Catamount turnover led to a layup from Marshall to make it a 10-7 advantage with 14:02 to play.
 
Four unanswered points returned the lead to the home team, but another Marshall layup temporarily returned the lead (12-11) to Cornell.
 
The teams traded baskets for the next four minutes before back-to-back buckets gave the Catamounts an 18-15 lead with just under eight minutes to go in the half.
 
LeDuc knocked down a pair of free throws to end the Vermont run but four straight points by Smith pushed the Catamounts lead to 22-17.
 
The teams traded baskets again, but the Catamounts answered twos-with-threes and pushed its lead to 31-22 with just over three minutes to play in the half.
 
Cornell struggled offensively over the final 2:50 of the half, which saw three offensive fouls called on the Big Red, as the home team pushed its lead to 35-24 on a layup from Emilie Cloutier.
 
With six seconds remaining in the first half, LeDuc drained a trey from the left side of the arc, but Tierra Shumpert hit a three-quarter-court shot at the buzzer to send the Catamounts into the half with the 38-27 lead.
 
The Big Red's forward tandem of Marshall and Aston went to work early in the second half, answering each Catamount bucket and scoring Cornell's first 10 points of the second half, but a 6-0 run gave Vermont its largest lead of the game (53-37) with 13:34 to play.
 
A trey from Kline ended the run and the Big Red got to within 10 points (61-51) with a traditional three-point play from Aston with 6:30 to play but once again Vermont had an answer and moments later the home team pushed its lead back to 14 points (67-53) with less than four minutes to play, setting up the wild finish.
 
Cornell opens up the New Year with the first of three consecutive home games as it plays host to Youngstown State on Friday, Jan. 2 at Newman Arena. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.