Rochester, N.Y. - Hot shooting from RIT over the course of the evening was the undoing for the Clarkson University Women's Basketball team, resulting in an 87-54 Liberty League decision, Friday night.
Clarkson moves to 8-12 overall, 4-9 in the league and will complete their road trip as they face off with Ithaca tomorrow, February, 6th at 2 p.m. RIT improves to 14-6 overall and 11-2 in the conference.
Despite an early corner three from Emma Chambers to put the Knights up 3-2, RIT would quickly regain an 8-3 advantage with quick baskets at the other end. Chambers and Addie Kea would both record threes over the next five minutes along with a Maddy Polky and-one layup, but consistent scoring from the hosts capped off by several turnaround jumpers from Ben Kayser-Cochran meant the Knights would enter the first media timeout of the contest down 21-15. An even 5-5 scoring end to the first gave the Tigers a 26-20 lead after one.
RIT would see their lead grow to as much as 13 just three minutes into the second thanks to an 8-1 run to start the quarter with four points from Faye Kaplinski. Fallon Griffin provided a much needed response for the Knights in the form of a wing three to bring it back to 10 with just under seven minutes remaining. Kea would answer a Tiger layup with one of her own on the next possession before another scoring run, this time in the form of a 10-0 streak, saw the Tigers' lead balloon to 46-26 with 2:32 remaining in the half. Kea would produce the final five points of the quarter for Clarkson, outsourcing RIT on her own 5-4, making it 50-31 in favor of the hosts at the half.
Both teams would shoot considerably well in separate categories as RIT would finish 75% (21-28) from the field overall, with three of those misses coming from three-point attempts, while Clarkson would finish the half with a 64% (7-11) mark from three. The Tigers offensive focus relied heavily on interior looks as the team would score 26 points in the paint over the first 20 minutes.
The Tigers would rattle off another scoring run, this time to start the third quarter, as a 12-1 start to the half put RIT up 62-32 with 4:47 left in the quarter. Polky accounted for the lone Clarkson point up to the 2:29 mark when Riley Cullen produced a slick fake hand-off and layup to make it 62-34 but a 9-0 close to the quarter from RIT made it 71-34 with ten minutes left in the contest.
Cullen got Clarkson on the board first in the fourth with another layup off a feed from Elizabeth Aiossa before Alexis Kress and Kate Campbell both knocked down threes to answer buckets from the hosts to make it 79-43, headed into the final five minutes. The Golden Knights would close out the remainder of the contest on a 9-4 scoring run thanks to buckets from Kea, Campbell and Cullen as the score stood at 87-54 with the final buzzer sounding.
Clarkson would finish shooting 39% (20-52) from the field and 50% (9-18) from behind the arc but a scorching 63% (37-59) field goal percentage led the way for the Tigers. RIT would lead in almost every statistical category, finishing with 31 bench points and 50 points in the paint. Unable to recover from 18 turnovers in the contest, the Knights would finish with 13 assists and 16 points off the bench.
Kea led the scoring output with 18 points for the Green and Gold, finishing 7-11 from the field. Cullen, Griffin and Chambers all added six points while Griffin and Aiossa also grabbed six boards. Kayser-Cochran tallied a game-high 22 points for the Tigers, Kaplinski dumped in 15 points on 7-8 shooting in just 14 minutes in the win.
