Late MIT Rally Dooms Owls 71-61

WESTFIELD, Mass. –  MIT went on a 17-4 run to start over the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, as the Engineers rallied past Westfield State, 71-61 in a non-conference women's basketball game at the Rockwell Cage in Cambridge, Mass. on Tuesday night.

After leading nearly the entire duration of the first three quarters, Westfield held a 50-46 lead going into the fourth quarter.

An Angie Choi steal and layup off of the Engineers' half-court trap tied game at 50-all with 9:21 to play.

From there, MIT took advantage of its size advantage inside to get away from the Owls, leading 54-50 on putback from Paula Pieper, then taking a nine point lead at 61-52 off of Elise Harvey's follow up of a missed free throw.

A three pointer from Westfield's Lindsey Bohenko trimmed the lead down to 63-59 with 3:42 left in the game, but that was as close as the Owls could get late.  An and-one fast break layup by Harvey extended the lead to 11, 71-60 with 1:12 to play to all but seal the Owls chances.

Bohenko and Jordan Grant led the Owls with 11 points each.  Olivia Hadla added nine points and five assists.

MIT was led by 19 points from Choi and 15 points and seven reboynds from Kamsi Ngowi. Brianna LeBrun added seven points and 14 rebounds.

MIT held a huge 55-34 advantage in rebounds, including getting 23 on the offensive end alone.  The engineers were 16-23 at the foul line while Westfield finished 4-9 at the stripe.

Westfield is now 2-1 with the loss while MIT is 1-2 after winning their home opener.

MIT trimmed the lead to just two points, at 48-46 with 1:20 left to play in the third quarter as Angie Choi stole the ball at midcourt and sprinted in for a layup that forced a time out from Owls coach Andrea Bertini.

A couple of possessions later Westfield got a run out fast break bucket from Lindsay Bohenko off a feed from Hadla to build the lead back to four, 50-46 at the end of three quarters.

Westfield led 35-30 at the half, getting points from eight different players in the opening stanza, led by five each from  Hadla and Grant.   Ngowi led MIT with eight in the first half.

The Owls got the game going at their pace early in, forcing 15 turnovers from the Engineers, but committing 13 of their own.

Westfield got off to a slow shooting start in the game, connecting on just 1 of 10 three-point tries in the opening quarter.

Westfield will next play UMass Boston on Friday at 5:00 p.m. at the Hunter College Tournament in New York City.