AMHERST, Mass. – The Ithaca College women's basketball team fell, 60-49, to No. 1 ranked Amherst on Saturday evening. The Bombers are now 1-2 on the season.
 
It was a tight game from the jump as Ithaca stuck with the Mammoths until the end of the fourth quarter.
 
Senior Cassidy O'Malley led the Bombers with 14 points for her third double-digit scoring performance in as many games. Fellow senior KellyAnne O'Reilly and junior Grace Cannon also netted double-figures to round out IC's top scorers. O'Reilly scored 12 points to go with nine rebounds while Cannon added 10 points and nine rebounds.
 
Ithaca netted the first basket of the game as Cannon hit a jumper 1:51 in to put IC up 2-0 over Amherst. O'Malley then hit a layup to give the Bombers a 4-0 edge before Amherst added its first points on a Hannah Fox layup.
 
O'Malley added two more points on a layup with just over six minutes remaining in the half before the Mammoths scored six straight on back-to-back 3-pointers from Gabrielle Zaffiro and Fox to take an 8-6 lead midway through the quarter.
 
The Bombers took the lead back with an O'Malley layup and an O'Reilly 3-pointer, to go up 11-8 with just over three minutes left in the first quarter.
 
The Mammoths, however, would go on to score six straight points in the span of two minutes following a fox jumper, a layup from Courtney Resch and another bucket from Fox, to grab a 14-11 edge.
 
Two free throws from Cannon with 39 seconds left cut Amherst's lead down to just one point heading into the second quarter.
 
Amherst came out of the brief break to score eight unanswered points. Fox and Madeline Eck each hit two free throws before Fox netted a jumper with 8:39 on the clock. Cam Hendricks completed the run for the Mammoths with a layup, making the score 22-13 in favor of Amherst.
 
A 3-pointer from Megan Yawman, a jumper from Cannon and a 3-pointer from Cara Volpe stopped the Mammoth's run and cut the lead to just one point, 22-21, with 4:29 remaining in the first half.
 
Amherst closed out the half on a 7-2 run to head into the half with a six-point advantage. Zaffiro started the run with a layup with 2:26 remaining, followed by a jumper from Resch. Zaffiro then converted an and-one play to give the Mammoths a 31-23 with just over one minute left in the half.
 
O'Reilly opened up the second half with a 3-pointer to cut Amherst's lead to just three points, 31-28.
 
After some back-and-forth action, the Mammoths went up nine points with 5:28 remaining, following a 3-pointer from Resch and a layup from Zaffiro.
 
The Bombers cut the deficit down to as few as three points with just under two minutes to play in the quarter, following two free throws from O'Malley, but four straight points from Amherst put the Mammoths up, 49-42 headed into the final quarter.
 
Amherst took its first double-digit lead of the game in the fourth quarter, starting with two free throws from Resch. After nearly five minutes of scoreless basketball between both teams, Resch hit another free throw to put the Mammoths up, 52-42. Hendricks then converted two more free throws to push the advantage to 12 points.
 
The Bombers scored all of their seven fourth-quarter points in the final two minutes, starting with a layup from Cannon with 1:52 on the clock. First-year Natalie Smith then hit a jumper with 1:00 remaining, following by another Cannon layup. Smith ended the game with a single free throw with just two seconds left on the clock, with Amherst taking the 60-49 victory.
 
Ithaca is back in action tomorrow afternoon with a 2 p.m. contest against Babson to wrap up the Amherst Tournament.