The AU women's basketball team was unable to overcome a large halftime deficit in falling 62-50 to Lafayette on the road Saturday afternoon. The loss snaps a two-game winning streak for the Eagles, dropping the Eagles to 4-3 in the Patriot League and 9-13 overall.
The Leopards started off the game ahead and never dropped back. Lafayette quickly jumped out to a 12-4 lead only eight minutes into the game before taking a game-high 16-point lead following back-to-back 12-4 runs. The Leopards would continue their strong play throughout the half to take a commanding 24-10 lead into the break.
Entering the second half of play, AU started on a 10-4 run to cut the lead to 28-22 only four minutes into the period. However, the Leopards would respond with a 15-6 run of their own to push the lead back up to 43-28 midway though the half.
The Eagles would make one more push to take the lead in the final minutes of play. Two free-throws by Liz Hayes, who scored all of her game-high 21 points in the second half, cut the deficit to within six with less than two minutes to play. Unfortunately, this would be as close as AU would get as Lafayette pulled away for the 62-50 victory.
The main problem for the Eagles throughout the game was their shooting. In the first half, they were only able to score 10 points on two of 18 shooting or 11 percent from the field. AU was able to improve slightly in the second half by connecting on 10 of 30, or 33 percent.
By comparison, Lafayette was able to hit on 10 of 29 shooting for a 34.5 shooting percentage in the first half and 11-20 or 55 percent after the break.
AU will look to rebound from this loss when they take on Lehigh next Saturday at Bender Arena. The game tips off at 2 p.m.
