The Red Hawks opened their week on Saturday afternoon with a game versus Bowdoin College. Traveling to Brunswick, Maine, RPI visited the home of the Polar Bears—who are ranked first on D3Hoops.com’s national poll, and have an NCAA-best 72 home game win streak. Bowdoin had no intentions of ending this streak and let RPI know that on this day, they would have their work cut out for them.
Senior Destany Eagles put back a miss on Rensselaer’s first possession, and for a moment many felt that maybe the Red Hawks could compete with one of the league’s best teams. The basket was a false sense of hope, however, and the Polar Bears stormed back to score on the other end of the court, beginning what would amount to a 26-4 run over the course of the next seven minutes.
15 turnovers fueled the Bowdoin charge in the first half, and shooting 25.8 percent from the field (8 of 31) didn’t help much either as RPI found themselves in a giant hole, down 44-17 going into halftime.
The second half was more of the same story, and when the final buzzer sounded, the final score was 86-36. Eileen Flaherty of Bowdoin was the game’s high scorer with 22 points, and Jill Anelauskas added a modest 12 points and six rebounds. The Polar Bears also recieved a tremendous contribution from the bench, which scored 42 points.
For Rensselaer, sophomore Caitlyn Charest had seven points. Eagles scored six, while senior captain Kristi Baranowski tallied five points and six boards.
The Red Hawks were back in action the next day when they took on Worcester Polytechnic Institute. WPI jumped out and grabbed an early lead, but play was close throughout the first half. Rensselaer took over the lead, 25-23, roughly around the six minute mark. The Red Hawks would not relinquish their advantage for the remainder of the first half, going up by as many as nine while shooting 50 percent from the field. As both teams headed into halftime, the score was 34-29 with RPI on top.
In the second half Rensselaer was able to hold on to the lead with a strong team defense. The Red Hawks largest lead in the second half was 12, and things appeared to be going smoothly. However as the minutes began to tick away late in the game, WPI made a run and chipped away at the lead.
With just over a minute left, Rensselaer found themselves up just by two, 54-52. Meghan Pajonas went 1-2 from the line for WPI with 26 seconds left, cutting the RPI lead to one. Pajonas would return to the line with 11 seconds remaining on the game clock, and once again go 1-2, this time tying the game at 54.
The Red Hawks then stormed down the court with a chance to win it. Sophomore Whitney Coleman was fouled with one second left in the game, and made her way to the free-throw line. After missing her first attempt, she drained the second giving RPI the lead and the victory by a final score of 55-54.
RPI got solid efforts from multiple players. Sophomore Elizabeth Barker provided a spark scoring 13 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, and Baranowski scored 15 points and had five rebounds of her own. Coleman tallied seven points and five boards.
The Red Hawks return to Robison Gym this week for a two game home stand. With their record standing at 1-3, Rensselaer will look to add some more tallies to the win column with games versus Russell Sage College on Thursday and the University of Maine Fort Kent on Sunday.
