AMHERST, Mass. – The Ithaca College women's basketball team fell to Babson, 66-51, in its second game of the Amherst Tip-Off Classic. Babson used a strong second and third quarter to move past the Bombers, who are now 1-3 on the year.
 
Senior Cassidy O'Malley netted a team-high 15 points for her fourth-straight double-digit game. Junior Grace Cannon scored 12 points, grabbed five rebounds, recorded a career-high six steals and tied her career blocks mark with three.
 
For her efforts against Babson and her 10 point, nine rebound performance against Amherst, Cannon was named to the Tip-Off Classic All-Tournament Team.
 
Ithaca took a 16-11 lead over the Beavers in the first quarter, starting with a KellyAnne O'Reilly jumper just 17 seconds into play.
 
Sophomore Cara Volpe hit a free throw and O'Malley scored on a fastbreak layup to give the Bombers a 5-0 edge over Babson less than two minutes in.
 
The Beavers, however, would score the next six points to take a 6-5 lead over IC. Megan Bauman started the run with a fastbreak layup, was fouled and converted on the ensuing free throw. Jade Perry then drilled a 3-pointer with 7:14 on the clock to push Babson head of the Bombers.
 
Volpe hit a layup before O'Malley put up a jumper, giving IC a 9-6 edge with just under four minutes remaining in the quarter.
 
After a 3-pointer from Bauman tied the game at nine, Cannon went on to score seven straight for the Bombers to give them the lead once again.
 
Cannon opened the second quarter with another bucket for IC and a Natalie Smith free throw extended the Bombers' advantage to 19-11. Babson, however, would go on to cut the deficit down to just four points with 6:06 remaining.
 
The Beavers then score the final six points of the first half to pull even with IC, 23-23, at the half.
 
Babson came out of the break firing on all cylinders to outscore the Bombers 21-5 in the third quarter.
 
Emily Bonifacic started things off for the Beavers with a layup and the front end of two free throws with 9:04 left. Babson would go on to build up a lead of as many as 17 throughout the quarter, starting with the first double-digit lead of the game following a Katherin Tamulionis layup with 5:45 on the clock.
 
The Beavers scored the next six points after that, and eventually built a 17-point advantage on a Katie Jones layup with 2:29 left in the quarter.
 
The fourth quarter was a better one for the Bombers, as they outscored Babson, 23-22, but it was not enough to close the gap created earlier in the game.
 
Back-to-back layups from Bonifacic to open the quarter push the Beavers' lead up to 20 points before Ithaca started to battle back.
 
O'Malley hit a layup at the 9:01 mark and Volpe added a fastbreak bucket less than two minutes later.
 
Action continued to go back-and-forth between the Bombers and Babson, but the Beavers continued to maintain a near-20-point lead for much of the quarter.
 
In the final minute of the game, O'Malley hit another jumper before sophomore Alex Heuwetter netted a 3-pointer to cut it down to a 15-point deficit. Junior Juliana Gamboa ended the game with a layup with 15 seconds left, ending things 66-51.
 
The Beavers out-rebounded Ithaca 48-34, forced 22 turnovers and scored 26 points off those turnovers. The Bombers shot just 29.7 (19-for-64) on the day while Babson netted 40.7 percent of its shots (24-for-59).
 
Ithaca is back in action on Friday, December 6 when it begins its Liberty League slate with a 5:30 p.m. game at Bard. The Bombers then face off with Vassar on December 7 at 2 p.m. before closing out the 2019 portion of the schedule at Rochester on December. 10.