Colonials survive comeback, win eighth straight

Megan+Smiths+17+points+helped+her+team+take+down+the+Golden+Flashes+on+the+road+at+Kent+State.

Kyle Gorcey

Megan Smith’s 17 points helped her team take down the Golden Flashes on the road at Kent State.

Zach Laufer, Copy Editor

In a game that featured teams shooting a combined 48.5 percent from the field, the Robert Morris women’s basketball team (11-11, 9-2) and the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights (6-15, 3-7) somehow found the score static for the last 97 seconds of the closely contested game in New Jersey.

Lucky for the Colonials, they clung to a one point lead before the drought began; RMU ultimately survived a furious second-half comeback by the Knights, winning 69-68.

Undoubtedly, this was a tale of two halves… even if it involved only one lead change.

The first half was dominated by Robert Morris. After FDU took an early 6-2 advantage, the Colonials, led by a 4-of-4 shooting spree from outside the arc by Anna Niki Stamolamprou, went on a 20-4 run over a seven minute span.

Nineteen first-half points from Fairleigh Dickinson’s Erika Livermore trimmed the deficit to as few as seven with just over four minutes to play, but a 14-2 RMU run, fueled by seven points from Megan Smith, sent Robert Morris into halftime leading 46-28.

The second half, by contrast, featured a vicious attempt by the Knights to salvage a key NEC victory. FDU stormed out of the gates, using an 11-2 run to cut the lead to single digits; but, with 10:32 remaining in the game, RMU still held a 58-45 lead.

That is when it started to get a little nerve wracking for the Colonials.

Fairleigh Dickinson scored the next eight points, getting to within five points, even though Robert Morris used a transition three-pointer to push their lead back up to 10.

With 2:34 to play in the contest, Kelsey Cruz knocked down a big trey, forcing RMU to see their once comfortable, double-digit lead cut to two points. Two free throws and an old-fashioned three-point play later, the Colonials found themselves up 69-68, clinging to a one point lead.

For the final 97 seconds, neither team found the basket, giving RMU its eighth consecutive win.

Stamolamprou and Smith led Robert Morris with 19 points each, while the team as a whole shot 46 percent from the floor, 12-of-25 from downtown.

The Colonials will travel next to Brooklyn to finish their two-game road trip against LIU Brooklyn. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.