Youngstown -- Despite its best shooting effort of the season, the Youngstown State women's basketball team dropped a hard-fought 76-60 decision to No. 18 Green Bay on Monday afternoon at the Beeghly Center.

Freshman Brandi Brown led the Penguins with 16 points while senior Rachael Manuel scored a career-high 14 points and Bojana Dimitrov posted 12 points. Brown just missed her fifth double-double of the season with a game-high nine rebounds.

Kayla Tetschlag scored a game-high 17 points to lead four UWGB players in double figures.

YSU took a 28-22 lead, which was the largest margin by either team to that point, on Dimitrov's bucket with 5:11 remaining. The Penguins, though, started to stumble when starting point guard sat down with two fouls, and the Phoenix ended the half on a 16-0 run. The Guins missed their last three shots and committed 10 turnovers after taking their 28-22 lead.  In contrast, the Phoenix connected on seven of their last 12 field-goal attempts.

The Penguins, who drained four of their first six 3-pointers in the first half, fell behind 14-9 with 12 minutes left, but they continued to chip away at Green Bay's advantage.

A 3-pointer by Kenya Middlebrooks, a jumper by Macey Nortey and another triple by Middlebrooks gave the Penguins their first lead of the game, 17-16, at the 10:07 mark. Dimitrov's 3-pointer at the 7:41 mark recaptured the lead for the Penguins, 22-20, and, after the Phoenix knotted the game at 22-22, jumpers by Brown, Manuel and a lay up by Dimitrov extended the Penguins edged to six, 28-22, with 5:11 to go.

Green By scored 15 straight points to balloon its lead to 64-37, with 9:44 to go in the second half. The Penguins, however, never gave up and outscored the Phoenix, 23-12, to close out the game.

Manuel, who had just four points at the intermission, scored 10 points in the second half and six in the final seven minutes.

The 50 percent shooting effort was the best by YSU since they shot 57.4 percent at Green Bay on Feb. 16, 2006.

The Penguins fall to 0-13 overall and 0-2 in the Horizon League and the Phoenix improves 13-0 overall and 2-0 in the league.

The  Penguins return to action Thursday when they visit UIC at the UIC Pavilion. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. EST.