The Colgate women’s basketball team was busy over break, playing against the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Canisius at home, then taking on Wagner away, and finally travelling to Brooklyn, New York to participate in the Long Island University Turkey Classic, facing Boston University and McNeese. The team beat NJIT 85-58, lost to Canisius 65-70, de­feated Wagner in overtime 85-72 and lost to Boston University and McNeese, 78-56 and 63-62 respectively. The team is currently 2-5 on the season.

Against Wagner, Colgate received 29 points and four steals from sophomore guard Jhazmine Lynch and 21 points and six rebounds from senior guard Tayler Wejnert. The Raiders took their first lead early in the game, coming back from seven unanswered points to secure a 9-7 advan­tage. As the teams volleyed back and forth during the first half, Colgate started to pull away, at one point leading the game by 14. By half time, Colgate had pushed the score to 36-30. With seven minutes remaining in the game, Wagner hit its stride, taking the lead 64-59 as the game hit the four-minute mark. The Raiders fought back, managing to tie the game and force overtime. In overtime, the Colgate maintained its sharpness, forcing Wagner into multiple turnovers and taking a 16-3 advantage, which won them the game.

“We traditionally have great match-ups against Wagner,” Head Coach Pam Bass said. “Simply, we believed that we would win the game. After going down late in the second half, you could see the ‘eye of the tiger’ in our student-athlete’s eyes. Our en­ergy kept getting better and better down the stretch of regulation and carried over into overtime. There was a tremendous crowd and it was the epitome of a great college basketball atmosphere.”

In last Friday’s game against BU, We­jnert had another great game and tallied 17 points and five rebounds. First-year guard Lauryn Kobiela produced ten points. The Terriers took an early lead, their 11-2 streak giving them a 13-4 lead. With eight minutes left in the first half, however, Colgate had trimmed the deficit down to five points. Entering the second half, the Raiders were down 29-21. Despite an explosive offensive start by Colgate, BU was even more successful, extending their lead to 24 with 9:37 remaining. Although the Raiders made up some ground, they eventually ended the game down 78-56.

The next day, facing McNeese, Colgate lost a heart-breaking game, only missing the win by one point. Lynch led the team with 17 points while senior guard Sami Kozlowski had 13 points on the game. We­jnert brought in 12 and was named to the All-Tournament team. The Raiders domi­nated the first half, finishing the period with a commanding 32-19 lead. In the sec­ond half, the team faltered and McNeese settled in, knotting the score at 45 with 8:33 left on the clock. McNeese secured the win in the last seconds of the game on a layup. Colgate finished the day with 78.6 percent from the free-throw line and a 47.5 shooting percentage overall. Com­paratively, McNeese was 72.7 and 34.8 in the same categories.

“We struggled at the LIU tournament in two areas,” Coach Bass commented. “First, taking care of the basketball against pressure defenses both in the full and half court and second, we were unable to con­trol the boards. Our shooting percentage is improving, but we need to rely on taking care of the basketball and winning the bat­tle of the boards on a nightly basis. There is no question that the greatest strength is the depth of the program. We have a num­ber of options to go to and players are very good at fulfilling their roles. As the season progresses, I would like to see us get more and more consistent as a team.”

Colgate will next hit the court this weekend when it hosts Loyola-Chicago on Friday and St. Francis (NY) on Sun­day. The following Saturday it will travel to Bryant, before taking a trip to Colorado after Christmas and taking on Northern Colorado, Colorado University and the Air Force. In January, the Raiders will play three Patriot League games before classes resume against Army, Lafayette and American.