CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Junior Angie Choi (Cypress, Calif.) poured in a game-high 24 points, sophomore Alice Hall (Ambler, Pa.) forced overtime with her first career three-pointer and MIT went on to defeat visiting Babson College, 69-63, in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) women's basketball action on Wednesday night inside Rockwell Cage.
Babson, which had its five-game winning streak snapped, slips to 11-11 overall and 5-3 in conference play. MIT has won eight of its last nine games to improve to 16-6 overall and 7-1 in the NEWMAC.
First-year
Samantha Reale (North Attleboro, Mass.) finished with 14 points, two assists and two steals, while sophomore
Chloe Perreault (Danbury, Conn.) added 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting to go along with six rebounds for the Beavers. Junior
Camilla Silk (Medfield, Mass.) posted a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards and classmate
Katelyn Mollica (Foxboro, Mass.) set a new single-season record for three-pointers while scoring seven points and dishing out a game-high five assists in the loss.
Junior Kamsi Nwogu (Algonquin, Ill.) totaled 20 points and a game-high 16 rebounds and graduate student Christina Antonakakis (Holmdel, N.J.) scored six of her 15 points in the extra session to lead the Engineers.
The Green and White erased an early five-point deficit with a 9-1 run that included the record-setting three-pointer by Mollica and four straight points by junior
Emily Flynn (Hanover, Mass.) to go in front 13-10 just over two minutes into the second quarter. Hoops by Flynn, Mollica and Silk stretched the Beavers' lead to 19-14 with 4:11 to go in the stanza, but Choi scored six of MIT's final eight points in the frame to give the hosts a 22-21 edge going to the locker room.
Perreault scored seven consecutive points to give Babson a 30-24 advantage four minutes into the third quarter before Choi and Nwogu combined for 10 straight points to put the Engineers back in front 37-34 with 1:46 to go in the period. Down four less than 30 seconds into the fourth quarter, Perreault knocked down a triple, Reale contributed back-to-back hoops and junior
Kiara Simone Davis (Coral Springs, Fla.) buried another three-pointer from the left wing to give the Green and White a 46-40 lead with 5:30 remaining.
Davis knocked down another trifecta and senior
Rachel McMenemy (Northborough, Mass.) scored inside and then hit two free throws to give the Beavers their largest lead of the game at 53-45 with 1:57 left in regulation. MIT answered with the next seven points to get within one on a layup by Nwogu but Davis hit Reale for a breakaway layup following a timeout to make it 55-52 with 28 seconds to go. Hall tied the game with a triple from the right wing with 22 seconds remaining and Mollica's pull-up three came up short sending the game to overtime.
Trailing 61-57 after back-to-back three-pointers by Antonakakis, Babson got layups from Silk and Reale to pull even with 1:32 left in the extra session. Nwogu broke the deadlock with a bucket in the paint and Hall scored inside on the Engineers' next trip for a 65-51 lead with 30 seconds to play. Choi and Nwogu both went 2-of-2 at the free throw line over the final 23 seconds to put the game away.
The Beavers shot 40 percent from the field and finished with a 46-44 edge on the glass. MIT shot just 31.9 percent and outscored the Green and White 17-6 at the free throw line in addition to scoring 17 points off of turnovers and 16 second-chance points.
Both teams return to action on Saturday at 1 p.m. as Babson hosts Springfield while MIT takes on Smith.
GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are 58-14 all-time against MIT and Wednesday's loss snapped their 11-game winning streak inside Rockwell Cage.
• Each of the last five games between the teams in Cambridge have been decided by six points or less.
• Mollica's first-quarter three-pointer gives her 57 on the season surpassing the previous mark of 56 set by Joanna Maher '03 during the 2001-02 season.
• Wednesday's game was the first to go to OT for Babson since February 1, 2020, when it beat Smith 79-71.
