HAVERFORD, Pa. -- The Elizabethtown College women's basketball team got off to a good start in the opening half of the season, but Haverford used a big third quarter to pull ahead of the Blue Jays and held on in the fourth quarter to defeat E-town in the season opener for both teams Wednesday night, 62-58.

Elizabethtown (0-1) trailed early, but the trio of Lydia Lawson, Abby Beyer, and Mikayla Ruth put the Blue Jays in the lead, 8-7, with 3:51 left in the first. After three early points from Lawson, Beyer sank three foul shots after being fouled on a three-point attempt. Ruth gave E-town the lead on a lay-in.

Ruth finished the quarter with a team-high six points and Elizabethtown led 14-13 after one.

Both teams put up 11 points in the second quarter, which meant the game stayed close throughout. Haverford (1-0) went up by as many as just two, 21-19, on Katie Cook's layup with 6:10 left in the second.

Ashley Reynolds grabbed an offensive board on a missed shot and laid it in, her first career points, to tie the game back up at 21-21. Emma Hoesman sank a jumper 30 seconds later that put E-town back in the lead.

The Fords evened the game at 23-23 with 1:01 left in the half. Marissa Emlet produced a steal-and-score with 11 seconds to go that gave EC a 25-23 lead. They led 25-24 at the half.

Elizabethtown held Haverford to just 1-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc in the first half, but the Fords would hit four in the second half. Three of those four came in the third quarter, where the hosts outscored E-town 23-15 to pull ahead and take a seven-point lead into the final quarter. The lead was nine until Reynolds grabbed another offensive rebound and put it back up and in to cut it to seven.

Haverford got up by as many as 12, but Elizabethtown slowly chipped away at the double-digit deficit.

Hoesman hit a pair of free throws with 1:33 remaining to bring the Fords' lead to just five, 56-51. Samantha Wetzel, who tied for a game-high 15 points with Ruth, canned a jumper from the elbow on the next possession to make it a three-possession came.

Ruth managed to hit her third trey of the game late on Beyer's assist, but with only a second and down four, Haverford ran out the remaining time to hang on for the win.

Elizabethtown will play two games this weekend at the Terry Greene Tip-Off Classic. First up for the Blue Jays is Stevens Tech on Saturday, November 18, at 1 p.m.