Box Score

HAMILTON – Mariah Jones got the recharge she was looking for during her brief holiday break.

Jones broke out of her recent scoring slump in a big way and Colgate won its fourth straight home game with a 72-61 victory over New Hampshire here Saturday.

The Raiders improved to 5-7 overall and 4-1 at home thanks to Jones' 25 points – seven more than her career high set twice last season.

Jones is the first Colgate player to reach 20 points in a game this season – quite a contrast to the fact she had scored just three total points over the previous three games. Saturday, she scored the team's first eight points and never looked back.

“Today, my teammates were finding me,” Jones said. “I was open and just stepping back and hitting the shot. My first one went in so I just kept shooting.”

Big Threes Late
Jones connected on her first two 3-pointers and finished with five from long distance to tie her career high. The Raiders were 9-of-24 from downtown, including an impressive 7-of-17 in the second half.

“Those were huge threes,” Colgate head coach Nicci Hays Fort said. “Paige (Kriftcher) had a huge three, C-Lew (Catherine Lewis) had a huge three, Mariah obviously had a couple and Lauryn (Kobiela) hit one.

“We did hit some huge, huge shots down the stretch, and we were able to get stops as well.”

Colgate held New Hampshire's Cari Reed to nearly four points below her team-leading average of 12.8. Reed finished with nine points.

“We wanted to really hold Reed and (Kelsey) Hogan to below their averages and we did a good job of that,” Hays Fort said. Hogan was averaging nearly nine points per game and scored just two.

“We didn't do a great job of taking the other kids out, but the team really focused on making sure Reed didn't get threes. We did a really good job of knowing where she was and not letting her catch and shoot.”

Reed was just 3-of-8 from the field and 1-of-4 from 3-point distance. She added two free throws in the final minutes for her nine points.

Lynch Reaches 1,000 Points
For the Raiders, Jhazmine Lynch scored 11 to become the 19th player in program history to top 1,000 career points.

“Finally!” Lynch said “I've just been trying to find my shot when it's open and not trying to force anything.”

Lynch was averaging just under seven points per game over her previous six outings, but her all-around game is shaping into form. She entered Saturday's game leading the Patriot League in steals.

“What people don't realize about Jhazmine is she's not scoring as much as she did last year, but she's having a better basketball season,” Hays Fort said. “She also had three assists, which is what we need her to do. Three assists and no turnovers – that's huge.”

Lynch is just the fourth Raiders scorer to reach the 1,000-point plateau since 2000. Sami Kozlowski was the last to do it during the 2011 season en route to scoring 1,066 during her 2007-11 career.

Season-Low Turnovers
Colgate finished the game with a season high 17 free throws made – out of 20 attempts – and connected on all eight tries over the final 1:37.

Just as impressive was a season-low 10 turnovers against 14 assists. Colgate's previous low for turnovers was 13 in a Thanksgiving win at LIU Brooklyn, and the free-throw shooting was reminiscent of earlier this season when the Raiders led all of Division I.

“Wow. We focused on passing and catching,” Hays Fort said of the turnover number. “We still had too many turnovers, especially late in the game when we were up 10. But we focused on taking care of the ball, which was good.”

After a see-saw first seven minutes that saw nine lead changes, the Raiders broke on top for keeps and led by seven at one point before settling for a 30-27 advantage at intermission. New Hampshire pulled within two on a couple of occasions early in the second half, but Colgate was just too deadly from long distance.

“When it's back and forth like that, we just want to get a nice stop and then come back and take a good shot on the other end,” said Jones, whose previous high this season was 17 at Sacred Heart. “We have to pay attention to time and score so we will know what type of shots to take at certain times during the game.”

Inside-Outside Balance
Jones had three of those threes in that second-half stretch. The first came with Colgate nursing a 44-41 lead at the 11:38 mark. She hit again to hand Colgate its biggest lead at 57-46 with 7:08 left, and then topped it off with a 3-pointer that made it 63-52 with 3:20 to play.

“We talk a lot about inside-outside balance, and we did a really good job of that tonight,” Hays Fort said. “We hit the open player and weren't forcing things. We did a good job of sharing, and tonight was just Mariah's night.”

Kelly Reid added 10 points for the winners – that's 29 points the last three games – and tied Jones for rebounding honors with six. The rebounding number was a season-high for Jones, while Kobiela tied her career best with three steals to go with five assists.

New Hampshire (5-7) was led by Morgan Frame with 17, Kaylee Kilpatrick 13 and Elizabeth Belanger 11.

“It was a great team win,” Lynch added. “We still had the leftover taste from that Iona game, so we just wanted to prove that was a fluke and that we didn't play as hard as we could have in that game.”

The Raiders host NJIT on Thursday in their final home non-conference tilt. Start time is 7 p.m.