New York, NY – The women's basketball team hosted the Panthers of SUNY Purchase yesterday evening in a non-conference contest. Despite a sluggish fourth quarter, the Hawks built up an 11 point lead after the first and never looked back as they locked up an eight point victory, 76-68 in their final home contest of the regular season. With the win, Hunter moves to 9-15 overall and 5-10 in CUNYAC play.
Ashley Yu erupted for a season high 24 points which included six three pointers and making four of five from the charity stripe.
Ayanna Hudson and
Ashley Arias recorded double-doubles with 13 points and 16 rebounds and 11 points and 22 rebounds respectively.
Azra Nikocevic and
Christine Patterson each contributed with 10 points apiece.
After being knotted at 6-6, the Purple and Gold went on a 12-0 run, bookmarked by free throws from Patterson and Arias. A triple from Yu closed the first 10 minutes to give Hunter a commanding 24-13 lead heading into the second. Hunter opened the next quarter of play with a jumper from Nikocevic and a three pointer from Yu to extend their lead to 16. However, the Panthers slowly chipped away at the lead and managed to chop it down to eight with 4:37 left to play. Three straight Purchase points to close the quarter left them where they began the second, down by 11, 40-29.
The Purple and Gold's defense held Purchase to just a single jumper through the opening 3:57 while they went on to score nine, making it a 16 point affair. The lead quickly ballooned to as much as 23 points while a good trey from Nikocevic to close the quarter gave Hunter a 22 point advantage heading into the final 10 minutes of play.
Purchase unleashed 10 unanswered points as the Hawks were held scoreless in the opening 4:29 until a triple from Yu stopped the bleeding. A layup by Kayla Ortiz with 1:17 left made it a seven point game. Her effort was followed up by a made free throw from teammate Minaya Frances cutting the lead to six, but
Selina Lim and Yu made their attempts from the charity stripe to put the nail in the coffin on the Hawk's ninth win of the season.
Hunter returns to action on Tuesday, February 16 when they close out the regular season at York College at 6pm.
