The Bison women’s basketball team lost against the Holy Cross Crusaders on Feb. 23 at the Hart Center in Worcester, Mass. This loss ended the Bison’s 12-game winning streak. Despite the defeat, the Bison seniors logged career milestones with Kyi English ’19 hitting the 1,000th point mark and Kaitlyn Slagus ’19 breaking the program’s all-time rebounding record, surpassing Hope Foster’s ’08 904 rebounds. During a mid-week game, the Bison bounced back with a 90-48 win over Navy, bringing their overall record to 23-5 and 14-2 in Patriot League play.

With three seconds left in the fourth quarter against the Crusaders, the Bison took the lead, 60-58, after a layup by Taylor O’Brien ’22. The Crusaders called a timeout in order to set up a sideline play from the frontcourt. With 0.7 seconds left on the clock, the Crusaders sunk a long, off-balance 3-pointer to win the game 61-60.

The Orange and Blue suffered this tough loss after a difficult showing from the foul line and a lackluster performance on the boards. The Bison shot 11-of-20 from the line and lost the rebound battle 41-29. The Crusaders were able to turn 16 offensive rebounds into 15 second-chance points.

English led the team with 13 points, ending the game at 1,005 career points. She is now the 25th player in program history to join the 1,000 point club. Slagus added nine points and six rebounds, giving her a career total of 906 boards. Kate Walker ’19 scored 10 points, while Ellie Mack ’20 tallied nine to go along with nine rebounds against Holy Cross.

“Saturday’s game against Holy Cross was a bit of an eye-opener for us. We also knew there were some things that we needed to continue to work on and improve upon so that we can reach our goal at the end of the season. However, losing by one point to Holy Cross was a bit of a motivator and the push that we needed. There is another level we can reach if we clean up some things on the offensive and defensive ends and we are very excited to show everyone what we can do,” English said.

The game itself was a back and forth battle with 13 lead changes. The Bison’s largest lead came during the first quarter at eight points, while the Crusaders’ highest lead came in the second quarter at nine points.

Offensively, the Orange and Blue shot 41.3 percent (22-of-51) inside the arc and 27.8 percent (5-of-18) outside the arc.

“Losing the way we did on Saturday was definitely tough, but I am confident that we will bounce back stronger than ever for our last three regular season games. We know the things we have to improve on, we just have to really lock in and focus on correcting our own mistakes,” Walker said.

Bouncing back from their loss, the women went on to defeat Navy at home on Feb. 27, 90-48. During this game, Mack tallied the third double-double of her career, posting 15 points and 10 rebounds. Earning a 25-0 run in the first half, each Bison on the roster scored during this victory.

The Bison next travel to American for a crucial match-up on March 2 and finish up the stretch against Army West Point on March 6.