Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

USC Upstate held off a fourth-quarter charge from the Longwood women at the G.B. Hodge Center, dealing the Lancers their first Big South Conference loss of the season, 46-45, on Saturday.

Down, 46-39, with 3:23 to play, the Lancers rattled off six straight points and had a chance to complete the rally on the final possession. Longwood had the ball with 4.9 seconds remaining as Kiki McIntyre drove the length of the court and down the left lane line, but was stood up by an Upstate defender as her shot attempt at the buzzer was off the mark.

“We wanted to attack, get to the rim,” said Lang-Montgomery of the final play. “Four seconds is a long time … but then it can also speed up really quickly. And so I think they did a good job of walling up the paint and forced Kiki to take a kind of a runner as time was ticking off.”

Upstate improved to 5-15 overall and 2-5 in the league with the win, ending the Longwood’s eight-game winning streak.

“Give a lot of credit to Upstate’s defense,” Lang-Montgomery said. “They did a good job of shutting off the paint and making shots hard for us tonight. And we didn’t get the job done.

AC Markham converted a three-point play to give the Spartans the seven-point lead — the largest of the day for either side — with three-and-a-half minutes on the clock before McIntyre sank a driving layup with with less than two minutes left. She then drew an offensive foul, giving the ball back to Longwood. Out of a timeout, Amor Harris drained a jumper to pull her team to within 46-43 at the 1:04 mark.

Longwood women try a last second shot

Mariah Wilson came up with a steal and Malea Brown knocked down a jumper in the paint with 38.4 seconds left.

Upstate’s Cassie Gallagher then tried a 3-pointer with Brown clearing the rebound and the Longwood women called timeout to draw up a play.

Longwood was just 19-for-69 from the field on the day and 0-of-9 from 3-point range, but did come up with 18 steals, forced 30 turnovers and grabbed 20 offensive rebounds for the third time this season.

“We just didn’t get it to go down,” Lang-Montgomery said of the shooting performance. “I thought our late-game execution was good. I just didn’t think we had as much toughness, grittiness as we needed throughout the game in certain moments.

Harris finished with a game-high 12 points on 5-of-11 from the floor, while Frances Ulysse added 11 and seven rebounds. McIntyre scored five points and collected six steals, five boards and three assists.

The Spartans shot nearly 65 percent in the second quarter to erase a 15-9 Longwood lead after one, taking a 27-25 lead into halftime, and was up, 34-33, at the end of the third period.

Upstate shot 19-for-39 from the field (48.7 percent) for the game Gallagher scored a team-best 11 points and Vera Soderblom tallied eight points and seven rebounds off the bench.

Heading home for another chance at 16

Longwood (15-6, 6-1) returns home to host Gardner-Webb Wednesday at 7 p.m., at the Joan Perry Brock Center.

“This is one that will sting, but then we got to get right back to it,” Lang-Montgomery said. “There’s still a lot of basketball to play. And so we’ll go back to work on Monday to get ready for Gardner Webb. They’ve got the leading scorer in the conference and we’ve got to be able to defend her and her teammates and guard that three ball.”