Rider women stumble late in loss to Bucknell

LAWRENCEVILLE » It was only the first game of a long season, but the Rider women’s basketball team will still be frustrated it let a winnable game slip away in the fourth quarter.

Kyi English scored 11 of her 17 points in the final 4:36 and Bucknell rallied from a 16-point deficit to defeat the Broncs, 76-71, in the season’s curtain raiser on Friday night at Alumni Gymnasium.

Rider (0-1) led for 30:15 until Gia Hayes hit a jumper for the Bison (1-0) with 5:16 remaining that gave the visitor’s their first lead since 7-6.

“We’re disappointed that we didn’t finish the job today,” 11th-year coach Lynn Milligan said. “When you have a young team that doesn’t have the game experience to close out a game like that, I thought that was obvious. We just made some bad decision in that fourth quarter.”

Bucknell out-scored Rider 26-15 in the fourth quarter.

Stella Johnson finished with 18 points and Lexi Posset had 12 for Rider, which struggled against Bucknell’s 2-3 zone after jumping out to a 23-9 lead after one quarter.

“I think (the zone) slowed us down a little bit from the tempo we like to play at,” Milligan said. “We have to step up and make a couple shots against that zone. You get people out of the zone by making shots and we didn’t do that.”

The Broncs used their quickness against the Bison’s size early on and ended up with 18 steals as they forced 28 total turnovers. Johnson had six swipes and Kamila Hoskova five.

“We played great defense in the first half, and just stopped our principals in the second half,” Johnson said. “We were helping to far under and then they kicked out for three. We just have to tighten up.”

Kaitlyn Slagus added 14 points for Bucknell, which shook off a 1-for-11 first quarter and ended up shooting 46.9 percent for the game. The Bison out-rebounded Rider, 4630 and were plus-14 from the free throw line.

“We had it and were up by 15 at one point,” Johnson said. “They kept coming back and we kept pushing up the score and I think we got a little cocky and we let it go.” PRINCETON 72, GEORGE WASHINGTON 52 PRINCETON » Tia Weledji led four players in double figures with 18 points and the Tigers (1-0) pulled away from the Colonials (0-1) in the season opner.

Carli Littlefield scored 14 points in her collegiate debut and Bella Alarie added 13.