The William Woods Lady Owls' furious second-half comeback fell just seconds short of completion.
Shamon Pearson's go-ahead 3-pointer with 2 seconds capped off a wild final 20 minutes and lifted the No. 2-seed Bethel Lady Wildcats to a narrow 62-61 victory over the No. 7 Lady Owls in the first round of the 35th-annual NAIA National Tournament on Thursday at the Independence Events Center.
William Woods ends its season at 23-9.
The Lady Owls trailed 38-22 at halftime and saw that gap balloon to 21 points when Tayla Foster's layup pushed the Lady Wildcats to a 48-27 lead with 14:44 remaining.
William Woods' offense came alive from there, whittling the deficit down to 51-43 on senior guard Destani Stensrud's free throws with 7:27 to go.
Foster responded with another layup to push Bethel's gap back to 10 points, but the Lady Owls squared the game with their ensuing 10-0 spurt. A pair of free throws by Lady Owls senior guard Blake French with 3:52 left evened things at 53-all.
Foster - who led all scorers with 26 points on 10-of-28 shooting - registered another layup to push the Lady Wildcats ahead by a bucket. William Woods junior guard Marissa Webb countered with a three-point play on the other end to lift the Lady Owls to a 56-55 edge with 3:03 to go.
William Woods stretched out to a three-point lead on a putback by sophomore center Kennedy Volkart, but back-to-back second-chance layups by Bethel's Kenyatta Drake helped the Lady Wildcats retake the lead at 59-58 with :45 to go.
Sophomore forward Kelsey Scherder buried a 3-pointer with :24 left to put the Lady Owls ahead by a basket and a defensive stop away from upsetting Bethel, ranked No. 5 in the NAIA Top 25 poll.
The Lady Wildcats extended that critical final possession when Jackilinn Street rebounded her own miss and fed Pearson for the winning shot and forced a William Woods timeout.
French's desperation 3-pointer with time running out was off the mark, allowing Bethel to wrap up the win.
The Lady Owls - who shot a meager 23 percent in the first half - converted 42 percent after intermission to wrap up the game at a 33-percent clip (21-of-64).
French was William Woods' lone double-digit scorer with 18 points on 6-of-15 shooting. Webb followed up with nine points, while Lateju and junior guard Julia Well each tallied eight.
Webb and Wells each grabbed eight rebounds as the Lady Owls were outgained on the glass 56-43.
Drake and Pearson scored 13 and 11 points, respectively, as the Lady Wildcats hit just 31 percent from the field (23-of-75).
Martessia Williams grabbed 11 rebounds, Foster totaled nine and four other Bethel players collected seven.
The Lady Wildcats (31-3) will play either No. 6 Carroll (Montana) or No. 3 Concordia (California) in a second-round contest at 9:45 tonight.