ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College women's basketball team dropped its regular-season home finale to RIT on Tuesday night, 64-52.
 
The loss is the third of the Liberty League slate, as the Bombers are now 16-5 overall with an 11-3 mark in conference. RIT improves to 14-6 and 9-4.
 
The Tigers came out firing on all cylinders, outscoring IC, 14-4, in the first quarter. RIT's Tara Lynch netted six points in the opening quarter to lead the Tigers.
 
Both teams struggled to put points on the board in the first two minutes. Junior Abbi Field hit a jumper at 8:03 to break the scoring drought, but RIT scored 10 straight points to take the 10-2 lead with 3:59 left.
 
Senior Meghan Mazzella scored the first two of her eight points at the 3:36 mark, but the Tigers closed out the quarter with a 4-0 run.
 
The Bombers opened the second quarter with the first four points from Cassidy O'Malley and Allie Tunick.
 
RIT went on to build up a 14-point, 24-10 advantage in the second quarter following an 8-0 run that started with a layup from Tara Lynch with 7:22 remaining. O'Malley finally ended the run with a bucket for the Bombers at 4:05.
 
Ithaca cut the deficit down to 10 points, twice, through the remainder of the second quarter, but ultimately RIT kept up the fight and went into the half with a 30-19 lead.
 
Sophomore Grace Cannon opened up the third quarter with a 3-pointer, bringing the deficit back to down to single-digits. RIT, however, scored six straight points on two jumpers from Cori Okada and a fastbreak layup from Brooke Stanley.
 
The Bombers and Tigers traded baskets for the next few minutes, and IC closed out the quarter with a 7-0 run. Mazzella netted a layup before O'Malley converted on a three-point play. KellyAnne O'Reilly ended the run with a layup at 1:20, cutting RIT's advantage to 45-38 heading into the final 10 minutes.
 
A 3-pointer from sophomore Megan Yawman with 8:11 remaining trimmed the deficit to six points, 49-43. A layup from O'Malley with 5:01 remaining brought it back down to six, before Lynch converted a three-point play for RIT which started a 6-0 run. Stanley followed that up with another three-point play, bumping the Tigers' advantage to 56-45 with 3:41 left.
 
With 1:00 remaining, O'Malley netted a layup, but the Bombers were still trailing by nine points. Okada closed it out for RIT with three free throws, and Ithaca's last-second attempts were unsuccessful.
 
O'Malley led all scorers with 19 points and notched 13 rebounds for her first double-double of the year. She also recorded four assists, three blocks and one steal. Mazzella finished with eight points and seven rebounds.
 
Three RIT players reached double-figures as Okada led the way with 17 points while Lynch finished with 15 and Alyssa Juergens had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Sabrina Wolfe was just short of a double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds.
 
Ithaca is back in action this weekend on the road against Clarkson on Friday and St. Lawrence on Saturday. The Bombers round out the regular-season next weekend with games against Bard and Vassar.