After spending the weekend in Boca Raton, Florida at the Florida Atlantic Thanksgiving Tournament, the Binghamton women’s basketball team traveled to Ithaca, New York to face in-state rivals Cornell. Despite keeping the margin close for the majority of the game, the Bearcats were unable to make a significant dent in their deficit, letting things slip away in the fourth and eventually falling to the Big Red 71-48.

“We just didn’t play our game,” said Binghamton head coach Bethann Shapiro Ord. “We didn’t play as a unit … We gotta remember that basketball is a game of runs, and you’re going to hit adversity. We just gotta get a little tougher in that part.”

Redshirt freshman guard Ella Wanzer hit a three-pointer to start the scoring as BU (4-4) got out to an early 7-2 lead in the first quarter. Binghamton, however, was unable to maintain its advantage as the Big Red (4-4) went up 13-11 by the end of the frame.

“When you’re on the road, you gotta have a mentality of ‘it’s a war, it’s a battle,’” Shapiro Ord said. “Every possession matters. Going on the road you gotta take care of the controllables.”

The second quarter started with a quick 9-2 run by Cornell. The Bearcats responded with a 5-0 run of their own and eventually cut the deficit to two points. They were able to capitalize off of an efficient 54.55 percent shooting from the field in the period. Despite its strong shooting performance, BU gave up a 4-0 run at the end of the period and turned the ball over 14 times in the first half. As a result, the visitors entered halftime down 31-25.

“We just kept going at [Cornell],” Shapiro Ord said. “We just kept battling even though we turned it over quite a bit. I just felt like the second half we weren’t getting stops. We were trying to make good things happen [by] getting in the paint, and when we got in the paint, we just weren’t seeing each other and playing together.”

Senior guard Denai Bowman opened the second half scoring by making a jump shot, and sophomore forward Genevieve Coleman followed that up with a layup to make it a one-possession game. As the quarter went on, the Big Red extended their lead and closed out the period up 51-41. Although Binghamton shot 50 percent in the penultimate quarter, Cornell bested that number, shooting 66.7 percent from the field.

“[Cornell] had a hell of a game,” Shapiro Ord said. “They did a really good job of knocking down shots and we weren’t knocking down our shots.”

In the final quarter, the Bearcats struggled to make a dent in their 10-point deficit. BU was outscored 20-7 in the fourth resulting in a 71-48 defeat, the team’s third straight loss.

A majority of Bowman’s scoring came in the second half. The senior scored 10 of her 12 points in the second half and added eight rebounds and two steals as well. Coleman finished the game with 14 points as the sophomore shot 53.8 percent from the field and grabbed seven rebounds in the process.

“[Coleman] made some nice buckets when we got her the ball,” Shapiro Ord said. “She did a really good job. She had seven boards, 14 points and [Bowman] again, the same thing … she had 12 points, eight rebounds, two assists [and] two steals … [Bowman] and [Coleman] played well.”

The Bearcats have lost three straight games now, all by double-digit margins, but they hope to set sail in the right direction against Fairfield this Saturday.

“It’ll be great to be home,” Shapiro Ord said. “We love shooting on our own court. So hopefully we get that shot back, but Fairfield is gonna be a really tough team too.”

BU will return home for a matchup against Fairfield on Saturday, Dec. 3. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Dr. Bai Lee Court at the Events Center in Vestal, New York.