Chicago -- The Youngstown State women's basketball team gave a stalwart defensive effort and had a shot blocked at the buzzer as Loyola handed the Penguins a gut-wrenching 49-47 defeat at the Gentile Center on Monday in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament.

No. 8 Loyola will move on to play at top-seeded Green Bay on Wednesday while No. 9 Youngstown State finishes its season 6-24.

The Penguins trailed by as many as 12 in the second half, but freshmen Liz Hornberger and Monica Touvelle gave them a lift and a chance to win late.

Macey Nortey's triple put the Penguins within two with 1:17 left, and YSU's defense held on Loyola's possession. Tieara Jones rebounded her own miss that would have tied the game with less than 10 seconds left, and the Penguins called a timeout with 4.7 seconds left to set up an out-of-bounds play. The league's leading scorer, Brandi Brown, got the ball on a cut to the rim, and her shot was blocked by Brittany Boeke as time expired.

Brown finished with a team-high 16 points despite having an off night. She was 4-for-4 from the free-throw line and finished the season making 35 of her final 36 attempts from the charity stripe. YSU coach Bob Boldon campaigned that she should have had a chance to make two more at the end to send the game to overtime.

Hornberger finished with 12 points on four 3-pointers, matching her career high that she set in YSU's 84-65 win over Loyola on Saturday. Jones posted eight steals, which was the most by a Penguin this season and tied for the eighth-most for a game in school history.

Monica Albano scored 15 of her game-high 19 points in the first half, and Abby Skube scored 13 of her 17 points in the second half.

The first half featured 11 lead changes and five ties, but YSU's slow start to the second half forced it to play catch-up the final 20 minutes. Loyola made three of its first four attempts in the second half and held the Penguins scoreless the first seven minutes as it took a 36-24 lead.

Loyola led 38-27 with 12:15 remaining when Hornberger and Touvelle hit back-to-back 3s to cut the deficit to five. Hornberger's next triple cut the margin to four with 9:52 left, but the Penguins didn't score again for more than five minutes.

Hornberger's final triple of the night made the score 45-41 with four minutes left, and Brown's three-point play with 2:39 left cut the deficit to one possession for the first time since the opening seconds of the period. Albano hit an off-balance bucket to put the Ramblers up 49-44 with 1:36 remaining, and Nortey's trey from the wing with 1:18 left accounted for the game's final points.

Youngstown State, which had shot at least 42 percent in four straight games, made just 26.6 percent of its attempts. The Penguins were 8-for-24 from 3-point range and 9-for-40 from inside the arc. The Penguins forced 18 turnovers but were only able to convert those into 12 points.

Loyola shot 38.8 percent and was 3-for-15 from 3-point range. The Ramblers were 8-for-9 from the free-throw line while YSU was 5-for-7. The Penguins shot 19 free throws when they defeated the Ramblers on Saturday.

Neither team led by more than four in the opening period. YSU jumped out to a 7-3 advantage with 17:38 remaining when Tieara Jones stole a pass and drove the length of the court for a bucket. Loyola scored the next five points to take its first lead, and the Ramblers took their largest lead with just over a minute remaining when Lisa Samplawski buried an open 3-pointer.