After a promising victory against Army, Colgate could not continue its success.

The Raiders (6-19, 3-7) lost back-to-back games this past week against Lafay­ette (10-14, 5-4) and American (17-8, 7-3), dropping them into last place in the Patriot League. While ‘Gate never threat­ened to make a comeback in their game against the Leopards last Wednesday, los­ing 80–65, it put up a much more vigor­ous fight against the Eagles on Saturday, falling 69-60.

In the first game, Lafayette hit a sea­son–high 13 three-pointers to dominate the Raiders at Cotterell Court. Forward Jared Mintz poured in a game–high 19 points for the Leopards while collecting six boards and holding down the paint as the Raiders lost by 15.

The Raiders attack was led by sopho­more guard Mitch Rolls who tallied 12 points to go along with five assists. Se­nior guard and captain Joe Hoban added 11.

Colgate got off to a great start in this game, building an 8-2 lead through the first few minutes, but Lafayette answered right back. Senior guard Ben Wheeler hit a three to put the Leopards up 14–11 as the team put together a 20–5 run and held their lead. Lafayette made eight three-pointers in the first half to bring the score to 41-25. Junior forward Nick Pascale had eight in the first for the Raiders but it was not nearly enough to keep them in the game.

Lafayette came out of the locker room just as hot as when they would entered it, building their lead to 25 points with 12 minutes left to play. With the score 62–37, any thoughts of a comeback were decimated. Finally, the Raiders brought the lead back down to 15 in the final minute but it was too late.

The Leopards shot a blistering 56.3 percent from the field (27 of 48) in this game, overcoming a solid shooting perfor­mance from the Raiders at 46.9 percent (23 of 49). ‘Gate faired well from down­town, making six of 14 shots, but Lafay­ette’s 13 made three-pointers were more than enough to compensate.

Next, the Raiders headed off to Wash­ington, D.C. on Saturday to try their luck against the second-place Eagles of American University. While the game was infinitely more competitive than the previous one, the result was unfortunately just the same for ‘Gate.

Sophomore Stephen Lumpkins led all scorers with 27 points as American Uni­versity bested Colgate 69–60. Lumpkins added six rebounds as senior forward Vlad Moldoveanu poured in another 17 to pace the Eagles.

Junior forward Sterling Melville led the Raiders’ balanced scoring attack with 10 points as Hoban added nine for ‘Gate. Ju­niors Yaw Gyawu, Mike Venezia and Pascale all had eight for Colgate and Rolls put in another seven.

In this game, the Raiders’ lead lasted more than just a few minutes as they took a 29-28 advantage into halftime. Well planned pos­sessions and solid defense were key to ‘Gate’s first half success.

Colgate came out flat again in the sec­ond half, however, allowing the Eagles to go on a 22–11 run from which Colgate never recovered. Lumpkins was a big part of the run, scoring six points, as a five– point lead for ‘Gate quickly became a 50–40 deficit with less than 11 minutes to play. To the Raiders’ credit, they kept it close and clawed back to get the lead down to six with 1:52 left, but the comeback fell short as the Eagles pushed it back to nine to seal the game.

In spite of the fact that the Raiders were a perfect 12–for–12 from the free throw line, a departure from their 13–for–26 per­formance against Lafayette, ‘Gate could not prevent its second–straight loss. They even went a gaudy eight-for-14 from downtown, but it was not enough to break up a new losing streak.

The Raiders will head to Bethlehem, PA to face off against the Lehigh Mountain Hawks (14-11, 5-5) on Wednesday be­fore a Sunday showdown at home against the league-leading Bison of Bucknell (18- 8, 9-1). If ‘Gate can somehow win their remaining games, a .500 league winning percentage will be decent consolation for a fairly disappointing year.