The Buena Vista women's basketball team came up short in its bid to clinch one of the final two Iowa Conference Tournament berths on Wednesday night by falling at home to the University of Dubuque, 85-78.

Lexi Fisher scored 22 points, grabbed a career-high eight rebounds, and dished out five assists to help lead the Beavers, who will now look to secure the sixth and final tournament spot on Saturday afternoon.  Shelby Wiederhoeft added 15 points and eight rebounds, while Lacey Vokt chipped in with 10 points and five assists.

Fisher drilled a game-high four three-point buckets in the contest en route to her second 20-point outing of the year.  It's also the fifth time she has connected on four three-point attempts in a single game.  Her five assists also move her to within two of reaching 100 in her career.

Wiederhoeft made 4-of-7 field goal attempts and 7-of-10 at the free-throw line, while Vokt made 6-of-9 at the charity stripe en route to her third double-digit scoring game in the last four outings.  She also matched her career-best with eight boards.

As a team, the Beavers shot 41.4 percent from the field, but made just 24-of-37 attempts from the charity stripe. 

The game was tied 16-16 in the early going before an 14-5 run by the Spartans gave them a 30-21 lead with 5:06 left.  A jumper from Wiederhoeft pulled BVU back within 33-30 with under three minutes to go, but Dubuque used another late surge to take a 41-32 halftime lead.

The lead grew to double digits for the first time at 52-42 four minutes into the second half and the Spartans maintained that advantage until the Beavers clawed all the way back to 58-55. 

Dubuque then made three free-throws to push it back to six, but BVU wasn't about to go away.  JadeLynn Vlotho later converted a three-point play to make it 63-60 midway through, but a free-throw and three-pointer by the Spartans quickly pushed their lead back to 67-60 just one minute later.

The lead grew to nine with under nine minutes to go and grew to as many as 12 at 77-65 with less than five to play.  From there, though, the Beavers were never able to get any closer than seven.

Dubuque, which improves to 16-8 overall (9-4 IIAC), was led by 19 points from Jenna Kotas.

The Beavers, now 10-14 overall (4-9 IIAC) fall into a tie with Wartburg College in the Iowa Conference standings.  The Beavers and Knights are one game in front of Central College (3-10 IIAC) which topped Luther tonight to eliminate the Norse from postseason play.

BVU will look to secure a bid into the conference tournament on Saturday afternoon when it hosts Simpson College at 2:00pm.  The Beavers will need a win over the Storm or a loss by the Dutch at home against the Knights to secure a spot without the use of a tiebreaker.