The Lehigh women’s basketball team lost, 68-63, to Lafayette College during Lehigh’s pink out game for breast cancer awareness Saturday night at Stabler Arena.
The Mountain Hawks (15-11, 7-8 Patriot League) sit in sixth place in the Patriot League with only three games left in the regular season. The Leopards (10-16, 5-10) are in last place.
Lehigh junior Colleen McQuillen led all scorers with 25 points, shooting 50% from the 3-point line. Junior Ella Stemmer added 15 to the Mountain Hawks tally.
“I mean, in everything I do, I just kind of want to win,” McQuillen said. “If that means I need to take more shots in one game than another, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Lafayette’s senior Makayla Andrews put up 20 points, while teammate senior Kayla Drummond trailed close behind with 15.
Lehigh grabbed the momentum of the contest shortly before halftime. Down 30-25 with 1:16 left in the second quarter, Maddie Albrecht nailed a 3, and then drew a charge on the other end to give the Hawks the ball back with 50 seconds left.
Junior Colleen McQuillen drained another 3 with 37 seconds left to give Lehigh a 31-30 lead.
After forcing a Lafayette turnover once again, McQuillen hit a jumper from the free throw line as the buzzer sounded, capping an eight-point swing to put the Hawks up 33-30 at the break.
“I thought we did a pretty good job limiting turnovers, which we’ve been working on for quite a bit, and the other piece is guarding our yard,” Micir said. “I thought we opened up our hips a little bit more, gave them too many straight line drives and they took advantage of it.”
Lafayette paid Lehigh back in the final minutes of the third quarter. Tied at 39 with 3:28 remaining, Lafayette went on a 7-2 run to take a 46-41 lead into the fourth.
“I mean, making shots helps,” coach Addie Micir said. “We generated open looks tonight, and we didn’t knock them down and that’s what basketball is all about.”
The game was presented by Lehigh Valley Topper Cancer Institute. Players from both teams held signs with “I play for” to recognize and honor those in their lives impacted by breast cancer.
“I think it’s really cool to be able to play for something bigger than myself and not just within our Lehigh community, but for the breast cancer community all throughout the nation,” Stemmer said. “It affects more people than we think, so it’s really special to play for something bigger than ourselves.”
The Mountain Hawks wore pink uniforms and shoe laces to show support, and many of the Leopards wore pink headbands.
Fans were asked to wear pink as well to show their support and honor those impacted.
“When we play our pink game, we talk about honoring that fight that a lot of women go through and families go through,” Micir said. “I’m really proud of the way our women handled the emotion of the game.”
The Mountain Hawks next match up will be on Feb. 28 at Boston University.
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