NEW YORK, NY – The Hunter College women's basketball team used a true team effort as four players finished in double-digits to defeat the visiting John Jay College Bloodhounds, 74-62 in today's CUNYAC/Con Edison Quarterfinal matchup at the Hunter Sportsplex.

Hunter improves to 13-13 overall while John Jay falls to 7-18 with the season-ending loss.

Sophomore Kristen Markoe had a season-best performance, recording her 12th double-double of the season as she led all scorers with 27 points and 14 rebounds. Senior Megan McKenna added 19 points and five boards while Erika DeJesus and Shatira Hamlet each added 10 to round out the Hawks top scorers.

“I'm just really proud of our team for fighting through the adversity, especially at the end of the game when John Jay tried to comeback. As a young team, we're really excited to play together and advance to the semis,” said Markoe of today's performance.

Her sentiments were echoed by Head Coach Vana Loukissas who added, “Coming into this game, our emphasis and point of focus was teamwork and playing strong together. I'm proud of our girls, I think they came out and did a great job working well with one another. We're excited about the win and to get back to work to prepare for the next round.”

The Hawks, who never trailed in today's game, allowed just one tie in the first as John Jay battled back from an early 5-0 deficit to tie the game at 7-7 with 16:30 to play. From there, the Hawks took control of the period and claimed its biggest lead of the half right before the break (37-27) on a McKenna jumper with 56 seconds left to play. John Jay would convert a layup just moments later to make it a 37-29 affair in favor of the Hawks at the half.

A three pointer from Nicole Lenard opened the second half and gave the Hawks an 11-point lead (40-29) and then at the 15:52 mark, a DeJesus layup made it 47-34 Hunter as the Hawks seemed poised to pull away from John Jay. After building a 14-point lead (63-49) with 5:43 to go, the Bloodhounds made a run of it. With a 9-0 spurt across the next three minutes, the visitors cut Hunter's lead to just five points as Danielle Eagan knocked down a pair of free throws to make it 63-58.

Hunter's resilience prevailed though as the Hawks got a clutch three-point play from Markoe at 1:41 to stretch the lead back to eight. The Bloodhounds attempted to foul down the stretch to regain possession but the Hawks connected on 8-10 free throws to close out the game, giving Hunter the 74-62 victory.

As a squad, the Hawks finished the game shooting 39% from the field and an impressive 75% and 84% from behind the arc and free throw line respectively. Hunter's stalwart defense forced 23 John Jay turnovers and stole the ball 14 times.  

Jamecia Forsythe led the Bloodhounds with 15 points and nine rebounds while Eagan added 14 points and eight boards.

With the win, Hunter advances to the semifinal round of the CUNYAC/Con Edison Championship Tournament where they will face rival #2 Baruch College on Wednesday, February 22 at 8pm. Please note that tickets ARE required for the event and can be found at www.cunyathletics.com/TICKETS.

THERE WILL BE A FAN VAN AVAILABLE FOR THE BARUCH CONTEST! Sign up on Tuesday, Feb. 21st in WB 315.