New York, N.Y. - Hunter College women's basketball fell to conference opponent The City College of New York on Wednesday evening with a score of 71-65 at Nat Holman Gymnasium.

The Hawks are now 9-3 overall and 3-1 in CUNYAC play, while the Beavers improved to 7-4 and 2-2 in the league.

Hunter dropped the game after leading by as much as nine points in the second quarter. They suffered from a successful scoring performance from CCNY, who shot 46.9 percent from the field, holding the Hawks to a field goal percentage of 32.9.

The Purple and Gold led by two points at the end of the first quarter, but the Beavers responded by opening up the second with back-to-back three-pointers. Hunter held on to the lead as Theresa Leung, Ashley Arias, Phoebe Valenton, Jade Aponte, Janine Conway and Christine Patterson all put points on the board to make the score 41-34 at the half.

Hunter's lead began to slip away at the beginning of the third when the Beavers went on a 12-4 run. Tying the score at 49, CCNY's Debra Chan scored to give the Beavers a 53-52 advantage going into the fourth quarter.

The Hawks continued to allow baskets from behind the arc for the Beavers as CCNY opened up the last quarter with three three-pointers in the first minute and a half. An 8-1 run with points from Conway, Leung and Arias allowed the Purple and Gold to trail by just one point with two minutes to play, but the effort was not enough as CCNY closed it out, 71-65.

Arias led Hunter with a double-double of 14 points and ten rebounds and Aponte and Conway followed with 13 points each. Maya Thompson tallied a game-high 11 rebounds as the Hawks out-rebounded the Beavers 57-38.

The squad returns to action on Jan. 5 when they host Mount Saint Vincent at 4 p.m.