Colgate’s women’s basketball team finally had the chance to defend their home court this past week after playing six games on the road. The team went into the week with an overall record of 3-3, and were eager to rack up a few wins. On Wednesday evening, November 29,  Colgate hosted Siena. A very close game, the Raiders came back from a 36-31 down at halftime. They ended the third period up 55-45, but it was in the fourth quarter that Siena struck. The Raiders began the fourth quarter strong, with five straight points from sophomore Tegan Graham, giving the Raiders a nice 60-47 lead with just less than 9 minutes left in the game. Siena gained momentum and a 17-4 run brought the score to 64-64 at the end of regulation, after a Siena 3-pointer with 32 seconds left. Siena outscored the Raiders 19-9 to bring the game to overtime, and led through the entirety of the overtime period, eventually ending the game with a 73-70 win over Colgate.

In spite of the loss, Graham scored a career-high 18 points, and the team finished November with 3 wins for the first time since 2009.

“This is a tough loss to swallow, but it’s going to have to be a learning experience for us,” head coach Bill Cleary said.

Hoping to make Wednesday’s loss against Siena a learning experience, the Raiders had two days of practice before its next competition. Colgate proved its ability to learn from mistakes and its determination to begin December on a positive note, with a record-breaking home game against UMass Lowell. 

On Saturday, December 2, the Raiders defeated the River Hawks 84-64, reaching an impressive 57.9 shooting percentage, for their largest home win in half a decade. Several Raiders had impressive performances on Saturday, with junior Mylah Chandler, sophomore Rachel Thompson and senior Tori Pozsonyi scoring 10 points each. 

The first period began slowly, but the Raiders soon took off, scoring 16 straight points, with a three pointer by junior Chelsey Koren to top it off. Two minutes later, senior Kateri Stone also shot a three-pointer, her 98th of her career.  She is now just eight three-pointers away from making the Colgate career top 10. A minute before halftime, the Raiders scored a 13-0 run, giving Colgate its largest lead of the game, 48-26.

The River Hawks came out of halftime with a vengeance, scoring the first 12 points of the second half. To follow, both teams had long scoring runs exceeding 10 points, bringing the score to 63-52 at the end of the third quarter. 

The Raiders dominated the fourth quarter, scoring twice as much as the River Hawks. The team played a fantastic game Saturday, proving their capabilities, and setting expectations for the rest of the season.

The last time Colgate had a shooting average higher than in Saturday’s game was January of 2007, where they shot 58.1 percent against Lafayette. Additionally, the winning margin reached on Saturday was the largest that has been seen on Cotterell Court since January 3, 2013, when the Raiders defeated New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). After Saturday’s game, Colgate improved its record to 4-4.

Contact Abby Waxler at [email protected].