ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College women's basketball team led from start to finish in an impressive showing on Friday evening with a 72-40 Liberty League conference victory over RPI. The Bombers improved to 6-3 overall and 2-1 in conference as they played their first game of the new year and first in 31 days.

The Bombers improved to 3-1 within Ben Light Gymnasium and are in a midst of a three-game homestretch that will see them play William Smith tomorrow afternoon and RIT on Tuesday (Jan. 11).

Inside the Box Score

• The Bombers showed their muscle in the paint by outscoring RPI 34-10 down low, and they also finished with a 48-31 rebounding advantage.
• IC saw a season-high 19 student-athletes see time on the floor on Friday evening and were led in scoring by Grace Cannon who finished with 15 points. She also added nine rebounds. Camryn Coffey shot 3-of-5 from downtown and finished with 12 points.
• Ithaca finished the evening with a 44.4 percent clip from the floor and went 6-of-18 from downtown. They held the Engineers to just 25.5 percent from the field and they shot 5-of-16 from three-point range.
• There were no double digit scorers for the Engineers with Ahnalese Pearson coming off the bench to score eight points in 20 minutes.

 
How it Happened

• The Bombers played arguably their best basketball of the game within the first quarter holding RPI to just 16.7 percent shooting from the field. Ithaca jumped out to a 17-4 lead after Cara Volpe converted a bucket in the paint that was assisted by Megan Yawman. The point advantage only grew for the home team during the final 4:05 of the period with a Natalie Smith floater putting them up 24-7 as the Engineers closed out the quarter with a Julia Rowe layup.
• A scoring spurt from RPI was matched by a strong scoring run that began with back-to-back layups from Grace Cannon and was capped off by a fast break bucket that put IC up 37-17. With under two minutes remaining in the half, Melissa Buxton went on a 5-0 scoring run of her own that gave her team the 47-19 lead. The Bombers went into the halftime break up 47-21.
• Ithaca opened its largest lead of the game (57-22) within the third quarter with Grace Cannon following-up on her own shot for a layup. Emily Dorn saw her presence felt in the paint by scoring on a jumper and drawing a foul where she converted both at the line to put the Bombers up 64-33 going into the final ten minutes.
• Coach Dan Raymond was able to get his bench valuable minutes during the fourth quarter as they cruised to the 72-40 win.

Ithaca will host William Smith on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Ben Light gymnasium.