The women’s basketball team (2-7 Patriot League, 5-15 overall) were comfortably beaten by Lehigh University (8-1 Patriot League, 17-4 overall) in the first of two rivalry matchups this season, falling by a score of 73-51, before losing a one-score game to American University (1-8 Patriot League, 1-19 overall) 54-52.
The Leopards entered the game against Lehigh off the back of their second win of the Patriot League season, a dramatic 1-point win against Loyola Maryland (1-8 Patriot League, 7-13 overall) last Wednesday 60-59. However, the Mountain Hawks started the game on the front foot, opening up a 9-2 lead within the first five minutes of play.
Baskets from senior guard Halee Smith and freshman guard Talia Zurinskas helped cut the deficit to three, but Lehigh closed the quarter with a 3-pointer to close out the frame with a 16-10 lead.
Despite narrowing the gap in the opening period, Lehigh blew the game open in the second quarter. The Mountain Hawks connected on six 3-pointers in the frame, and had both a 17-0 and 9-0 run in the period to open up a 26-point lead at the half, leading the game 44-18. Junior guard Kay Donahue emphasized 3-point defense as the main contributor to this one-sided quarter.
“Lehigh is a three-point team, most of their girls shoot above 40% from the line,” Donahue wrote in an email. “We struggled with keeping them off the line in transition and their threes just added up.”
On the opposite side of the ball, the Leopards put up only 18 points in the first half, their lowest mark in the Patriot League this season. According to senior guard Abby Antognoli, Lehigh’s consistent scoring prevented them from finding a groove on offense.
“We were not able to get out in transition, which is known to be our best offensive strategy,” Antognoli wrote in an email. “Taking the ball out of the rim and running offense against their aggressiveness and lengthiness was causing issues for us to score.”
Lehigh did not let up at the start of the third quarter, opening with a 9-2 run. The teams would trade scores for the rest of the period, and two made three-pointers from Antognoli helped the Leopards close the quarter on an 8-2 run, but the score was still lopsided at 63-35 in favor of the Hawks.
The Maroon and White pulled together their best quarter in the fourth, outscoring Lehigh 16-10, with Donahue and sophomore guard Rosie Scognamiglio contributing six and four points, respectively. Ultimately, the Leopards had left far too much work to do in the second half and were beaten by over 20 points.
The game marked the fourth time this season the Leopards have surrendered 70 or more points in the Patriot League, losing all four games. In Lafayette’s two wins this year, they’ve held the opposing team to under 60 points. Antognoli emphasized the need to find defensive consistency as the season reaches its halfway point.
“We have showed that we are able to have great defensive quarters but have struggled to combine four consecutive quarters,” Antognoli wrote. “We need to keep working on our defensive strategy in practice and replicate it at a game-like pace.”
The Leopards returned to the court on Wednesday, failing to get back into the win column with a two-point road loss against American.
Against the winless Eagles, the Maroon and White jumped out to an early 20-12 lead, but an offensive surge from American saw the teams in a one-possession affair heading into halftime.
Early third-quarter jumpers from junior guard Sauda Ntaconayigize and sophomore forward Tasha Chudy saw the Leopards’ lead shoot back up to seven, but the Eagles quickly cut back into the deficit and even took the lead at a point. Tied 43-43 with just over eight minutes left in the final quarter, both teams traded blows in the final frame, but the Maroon and White failed to muster enough offense, scoring just nine points in the quarter en route to granting American its first win of the season.
The team sits eighth in the Patriot League, currently in position to make the postseason with several weeks remaining in the season. Donahue, however, says the team has the ambition to climb higher.
“There is still plenty of season left on top of the tournament at the end,” Donahue said. “I am confident in what this team can do. We are better than what our ranking shows and the team knows we can do so much more than we have.”
The team will host Colgate University (5-4 Patriot League, 15-7 overall) at home on Saturday at Kirby Sports Center in the annual Play4Kay game.
