Box Score BALTIMORE, MD – The RIT women's basketball team (7-2) fell in a low-scoring, tight battle to Johns Hopkins (3-5), 54-47 on Saturday afternoon in the first ever meeting between the two schools.
Tara Lynch (Green Township, NJ/Newton) was the lone Tiger in double figures, recording a double-double with 15 points on 5-for-13 shooting, adding 11 rebounds.
Amanda Olsen (Glen Mills, PA/Archmere Academy) scored nine points to go along with five rebounds, while
Cori Okada (Fullerton, CA/Troy) chipped in seven points.
Sophia Way scored 14 points on 4-for-8 shooting to lead the Blue Jays, who held RIT to a season-low 28 percent shooting from the field. The Tigers loss snapped a four-game win streak, the longest of the season.
"I thought we were very slow out of the gate, and we never were able to ger our offense going," said RIT women's basketball head coach
Amy Reed. "We didn't execute well and run our sets. If you hold a team to 54, you ought to be able to win."
Consecutive layups by Lynch gave the Tigers a small 6-2 lead to open the contest, one they held through the first quarter. A layup by Johns Hopkins' Janay Smith reduced the Tiger lead to 13-10 after one. In the second quarter, the Blue Jays took a brief lead. Lexie Sholtz scored on a layup to give the Blue Jays a slim lead, at 22-21, with 1:25 remaining. But the Tigers regained the lead on a basket by
Abby Judd (Pittsford, NY/Pittsford Sutherland), sending RIT into the locker room with the 24-22 advantage.
In the second half, the Tigers attempted to pull away.
Julia Bender (Webster, NY/Webster Thomas) found
Jessica Glaz (Rockaway Beach, NY/Scholars Academy), who was able to hit from downtown, giving RIT a seven-point lead. After a pair of free throws by Johns Hopkins,
Cori Okada (Fullerton, CA/Troy) gave the Tigers their biggest lead of the game, at 40-32, with 1:12 remaining in the third. From there, Johns Hopkins went on a 10-2 run to tie the game at 42-42 in the fourth quarter.
With the game nearing its end, the Blue Jays got their first lead of the second half at 47-45, by a Katie Clark mid-range jumper. With RIT desperately looking for a big basket,
Maria Edwards (Forrest Hill, MD/The Carroll School), playing in her hometown for the first time collegiately, knifed through the lane off a screen to tie the game with 45 seconds remaining. That would be the last points for the Tigers, as the Blue Jays hit seven clutch free throws down the stretch to preserve the victory.
The Tigers had a final chance to send the game into overtime with 10 seconds left, but Glaz barely missed the tying 3-pointer, as the Blue Jays corralled the rebound.
The Tigers will begin Liberty League play on Friday, as they hit the road to take on Skidmore at 6 p.m. The Tigers went 6-10 in conference play last season.
