This past Wednesday, the Colgate women’s basketball team played its final game of the regular season, matching up against the Lehigh Mountain Hawks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. While the Raiders did not come home with the win, falling to the Lehigh Mountain Hawks 83-74, it was still a fierce battle, which brought the season to a close with an overall record of 10-19 and a 7-11 record in Patriot League play.

The first half of the game was a tug-of-war match with six ties and ten lead changes. After the first quarter Lehigh led 23-17, but Colgate

responded in the second quarter by coming in with a 10-1 run and taking the lead 37-34. Despite this surge, the Raiders were hurting on their three-pointers, shooting 1-6, while the Mountain Hawks made 6-11. As a result, Colgate went into halftime down 42-39. Coming back from the break, the Hawks maintained their lead, finishing the third quarter up 61-53. Looking for a comeback in the fourth, the Raiders went scoreless for six minutes while junior guard Bernadette Devaney put in back-to-back three-pointers for Lehigh. Although the outcome looked bleak with only four minutes left on the clock, Colgate did not give up. An unbelievable performance by first-year guard Rachel Thompson and sophomore forward Summer King kept the Raiders in the game with a 15-5 streak, shrinking Lehigh’s lead to 79-73 with just one minute left to play. Despite their efforts, the Hawks had too big of a lead and made four of their five free throws in the final minute of the game. 

The Mountain Hawks always seem to pick up their play when they face the Raiders. At the game’s conclusion, the home team stepped off the court with season highs in overall shooting.. Additionally, Lehigh made an astounding11-for-21 shots from behind the arc, after earning their season high of twelve three-pointers against Colgate just a week prior. To add to Colgate’s uphill battle, senior guard and key player Katie Curtis was benched due to an injury. Curtis’s injury also caused her to break her streak of playing in 60 consecutive games, and starting in 53 of them.

Game highlights for Colgate include a phenomenal performance from Thompson, who shot a career-high 25 points and had her second double-double of the season. She also added five steals to her record, securing a team high of 46 steals. Junior guard Kateri Stone sank her 59th three-pointer of the season, which puts her third on the All-Time Raider list. In addition to Thompson and Stone’s milestones, sophomore guard Chelsea Koren had 11 points, sophomore guard Mackenzie Carroll had 10 points, and sophomore forward Mylah Chandler had seven points. 

“I’m so proud of our players. We didn’t have to play for anything tonight; we had the six seed. And nine players. But we’ve been doing that all year – we’ve had 10 players all year going up against teams with 14 and 15 players. For our players to do what they did tonight, they showed me and our staff the character this team has and why we are going to win here,” head coach Bill Cleary said.

Colgate headed into the Patriot League Tournament as the number-six seed. The Raiders began their postseason push on Monday, March 6 against Army West Point, but saw their season come to an end as they fell to the Black Knights 83-76. Curtis chipped in 15 points for the Raiders in her final game in maroon.