BALTIMORE – UMBC women's basketball gave red-hot Lafayette a 40-minute battle, but the Leopards won their fourth straight and edged the Retrievers, 59-53 at The Peake.

Retriever graduate student post Anna Blount recorded her first career double-double, leading the Retrievers with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Jordon Lewis and Jaden Walker also tallied in double figures for UMBC with 11 points apiece.

Lafayette's Abby Antognoli led all scorers with 25 points.

UMBC trailed, 52-45 with 3:00 remaining, but whittled the deficit to two points on two occasions in the final 50 seconds. Blount hit a short jumper to bring the Retrievers to within 55-53 at the 22-second mark, but fouled out on the inbounds play and Antognoli converted two free throws to restore the Leopard lead to 57-53. After a missed UMBC 3-point attempt, she sunk two additional free throws to with three seconds left provide the final margin of victory.

The first half featured a pair of major runs from each side. UMBC struck first and hard, reeling off 13 consecutive points over the first 4:35 of the contest.

But the visitors countered with eight straight points, before a Lewis trey halted the run and gave the Retrievers a 16-8 lead with 1:05 remaining in the first quarter.

However, that was UMBC's lone field goal for over seven minutes, as the Leopards scored 12 consecutive points to grab a 20-16 lead before Anne Adewumi's trey with 4:03 to play in the half sliced the deficit to 20-19.

Lafayette lead, 23-20, at halftime. Blount snared eight first half rebounds for the Retrievers.

UMBC outscored Lafayette, 15-14, in the third quarter and trailed, 37-35, but the Leopards opened the fourth quarter on a 7-0 run to force an uphill climb by the hosts.

UMBC outrebounded Lafayette, 36-27, but could not overcome 21 turnovers.

The Retrievers face Manhattan in New York on Sunday at 2:00 p.m.