BOX SCORE

New York, N.Y. – On Monday evening, February 4, the women's basketball team played host to the Blue Jays of NYU-Poly in a non-conference contest. After falling behind by seven at the half, the Hawks rallied to force two overtimes and outlasted the visitors to secure their fifth straight win by way of a 76-70 victory. With the win, Hunter moves to 10-12, 8-5 CUNYAC while NYU-Poly drops to 6-15 overall.
 
Nicole Lenard posted 24 points for the Hawks on the strength of 3-4 shooting from behind the arc while pulling down 18 boards and coming up just three assists shy of a triple-double. Teammate Ayanna Hudson was an efficient 5-10 from the field and totaled 12 points to back up her game and career high 23 boards. Kristen Sells also came up big for the Hawks with a 17 point, seven rebound night while Melinda Seide rounded out the Hunter contingent in double digit scoring with 10 points on 5-7 shooting from the floor.
 
For the Blue Jays, Alyssa D'Apice recorded a game high 26 points with 15 of them coming from downtown. Shely Bruns notched a double-double with 17 points and 15 boards while Tabitha Larsen added 12 points and dished out eight assists in the loss.
 
The Hawks got on the board first with a Sells fastbreak layup sparked by a Lenard steal. However, over the opening five minutes, the lead would swap four times with neither side getting ahead by more than four points until Ayanna Hudson knocked down one of two from the charity stripe to secure a four point Hunter cushion. At the 12:31 mark, the Hawks led by three at 13-10, but over the ensuing 7:50, NYU-Poly responded by outscoring Hunter 15-5, punctuated by a Larsen triple to go up by 7. The visitors managed to hold the seven point cushion through the half and into halftime.
 
In the second, the Hawks held the lead for just three minutes and played from behind for the majority of the time. An opening half jumper by Aisha Abu Marzouq gave the Blue Jays a nine point advantage, the largest of the game. However, a triple by Lenard sparked a 12-2 run in favor of Hunter to give them their first lead of the game since the 12 minute mark of the first half.
 
The lead would not last long as NYU-Poly came back and regained the upper hand at the 13:03 mark on a D'Apice jumper. The Hawks trailed through the rest of the half and found themselves down by three with 1:24 left to play. Dimitra Thomopoulos drained a jumper to pull within one but Bruns responded with a made shot of her own to push the differential back to three in favor of the Blue Jays.
 
With 15 seconds left in regulation, Lenard forced overtime as she sank a three-pointer with 15 seconds left to knot the game at 60 apiece.
 
In the first of what would be two overtimes, Hunter found themselves up by four with a minute remaining but the Blue Jays hung tough and managed to cut the deficit to three and then sunk the second buzzer beater of the game with eight seconds left as D'Apice connected on a triple to force a second overtime.
 
During the final five minutes of the game, NYU-Poly went cold from the field, hitting on just one of 12 attempts which helped the Hawks pull away in the final minutes and put the game on ice by sinking 3-4 from the charity stripe, securing their 10^th victory of the season.
 
Hunter returns to action on Wednesday, February 6 when they host the Cardinals of York College in a CUNYAC contest. Tipoff is slated for a 5pm start.