LEWISTON, Maine -- The No. 2 seed Bates women's basketball team rallied from a 20-point halftime deficit and prevailed 67-64 in overtime Saturday afternoon over the No. 7 seed Hamilton College Continentals in NESCAC quarterfinal action at Alumni Gymnasium. 

The Bobcats (22-3) survive and advance to play the No. 3 seed Amherst College Mammoths in the NESCAC semifinals next Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on the campus of Bowdoin College. 

Junior Sarah Hughes (Rumson, N.J.) scored 20 of her game-high 23 points in the final 25 minutes to propel the Bobcats to victory. Senior Sophie Spolter (Blacklick, Ohio) added 17 points, senior captain Ava James (Bethesda, Md.) came up big with 12 points on 4-8 shooting, and senior captain Elsa Daulerio (Harpswell, Maine) battled her way to 12 points and nine rebounds. 

Those four players combined for 64 of the 67 points scored by the Bobcats on Saturday. Hughes, Spolter, and James combined for 10 steals, nine of which came in the second half and overtime.

Bates trailed 34-14 at halftime. Hughes got the rally started in the third quarter, hitting a jumper with 8:05 remaining. James followed with a three and Bates trailed by 15. Erica Hills hit a pair of free throws but James answered with another three-pointer and the deficit was down to 14 with 6:14 left. The teams traded layups before a James steal led to a fastbreak layup for Hughes and the score stood 38-26 with 4:50 on the clock. 

The Bobcats continued to chip away and got the deficit down to six on Spolter layup with 13 seconds left. But a Hills three-pointer at the buzzer gave Hamilton a 47-38 lead entering the fourth quarter.

Bates opened the fourth quarter on a 5-0 run, as Spolter drilled a three and Hughes converted a layup to make it a four-point game. The Bobcats continued to put the pressure on and tied the game at 49 when Hughes tallied a steal and another fastbreak layup with 5:39 left in regulation. Hughes briefly gave Bates a 51-49 lead with 5:12 to go, but the Continentals refused to back down.

With the score tied at 53, Hamilton's Kendall Harris hit a three-pointer and followed that up with another bucket and all of a sudden the visitors led 58-53 with 50 seconds left. 

Hughes refused to lose, drilling a three-pointer from the right wing with 42 seconds remaining and the Bobcats got a big defensive stop on the other end, giving them the ball back with nine seconds left. Hughes drove to the hoop but missed a contested layup. Luckily, Daulerio was there for the put-back, tying the game at 58. Hamilton called time and advanced the ball with three seconds remaining. The inbound pass in the frontcourt out of the timeout got bobbled, and Spolter smothered it as the game went to overtime.

A Daulerio jumper got a 6-0 run started for the Bobcats to begin overtime. Bates led 66-60 with 1:53 remaining in OT, only to see Hills and Harris both record buckets to trim the lead to two. Hughes split a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left, giving the Continentals one last chance. But Harris missed a potential game-tying three and the Bobcats prevailed.

Bates survived despite a first half that saw the Bobcats shoot just 6-28 from the floor. Hills and Harris paced the Continentals (12-13) with 19 and 16 points, respectively. 

This marks the third time in the past five seasons Bates women's basketball has advanced to the NESCAC semifinals.