51·çÁ÷

Nov. 25, 2003

Contact: Amanda Brickell

Hamilton, NY — The 51·çÁ÷ women’s basketball team took home its first-ever win over Buffalo with a 69-65 victory on Tuesday night.  The Bulls led the overall series 8-0 before the Raiders ended Buffalo’s unbeaten streak.  The Raiders 3-0 start on the season is the best ever recorded by a women’s hoops team in the program’s thirty year history.

51·çÁ÷ took control of the first half with an eleven point scoring run thanks to seven points from senior 'xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = 'urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags' />Malissa Burke (Traverse City, Mich.).  Buffalo ended the drought on a lay-up by Brooke Meunier five minutes into the game, but solid three-point shooting from Allison Lipinski (Garfield Heights,Ohio) would help the Raiders maintain the edge and stretch their lead to 18 by the 10:00 mark.

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The Bulls capitalized at the free throw line going 6-6 in the final three minutes of the half.  A jumper by Jessica Korchendorfer with 14 seconds left in the first would close the gap to three and send 51·çÁ÷ to the locker room up 34-31 at the break.

Buffalo was 8-25 from the field in the first half, but turned in an impressive 14-16 performance at the free-throw line.   The Bulls struggled to maintain possession of the ball early, committing 13 turnovers to 51·çÁ÷’s six.  They did, however, outrebound the Raiders 23-19.  51·çÁ÷ was 11-31 from the field and 7-12 at the charity stripe.

The Raiders maintained a tenuous lead in the early minutes of the second half and stretched the margin to eight on a three-pointer by Lipinski.  Buffalo‘s Korchendorfer answered with three jumpers in less than a minute to knot the score at 45-45 with 14:34 left to play.

The Bulls took the lead for the first time on a lay-up by Kelly Calderone with 13:05 left in the game.  Buffalo would stretch its lead to five before freshman Molly Patterson (Euclid, Ohio) changed the momentum of the game with a shot from behind the arc to bring the Raiders within one.

The Raiders went ahead with four minutes left to play on a three-pointer from Burke and would stretch 51·çÁ÷’s lead to seven in just under one minute.  A lay-up by Brooke Meunier would bring Buffalo within one, but junior Emily Braseth (E. Grand Rapids, Mich.) sank two from the free-throw line to give the Raiders a three point edge before Chigozie Ozor (Ann Arbor, Mich.) sealed the 69-65 victory with a foul shot.

Lipinski had a team-high 20 points and was 7-14 from the field.  Burke scored 14 points and dished four assists in the victory.  Patterson added five assists and nine points while shooting 3-6 from the field.  Junior Leandra Fuller (Harrisburg, Pa.) had a team-high seven rebounds and was 4-5 from the free-throw line.

The Bulls were led by Korchendorfer with 20 points and 12 rebounds.  Meunier had a career-high 23 points and nine rebounds in the loss.

51·çÁ÷ moves to 3-0 on the season and will hit the court again on Nov. 30 at Vermont.  The game is set to start at 1 p.m. at Patrick Gymnasium in Burlington, Vt.