Box Score | Photo Gallery

EASTON, Pa. - After a tightly contested first half, the Leopards slipped behind the visiting Midshipmen in the third quarter and were never able to recover, falling by a final score of 59-43 on Wednesday night at Kirby Sports Center.

"We didn't get the result we wanted tonight, but at the end of the day we have to take care of business and put ourselves in a position to be successful," head coach Kia Damon stated. "We'll go back to the drawing board for our next opponent to come up with the best plan to earn a win there, and really just take it one game at a time."

Turnovers played a large role once again, as Navy capitalized on Lafayette's miscues to secure 19 points off of the Leopards turnovers. Neither team shot well all evening, as the Leopards finished the game at 15-for-52 (29%) from the floor, while the Mids didn't fare much better, going 22-for-64 (34%) for the game.

Alexis Santarelli led Lafayette's offense with 11 points, while Sarah Agnello chipped in with a season-high 10 points. Navy was led by the trio of Sophie Gatzounas, Taylor Dunham and Kaila Clark, who finished with 16, 14 and 13, respectively.

The loss drops the Leopards to 9-15 overall with a 5-9 mark in the Patriot League. Navy improves to 11-3 in league play and 21-4 for the year.

It was back and forth for the opening 10 minutes, as the Leopard played the Mids tightly throughout the first quarter. Navy took a 6-2 lead early on before Drew Freeland nailed a three in the corner to pull the Leopards within one heading into the media timeout. Following the break, Lafayette tied the game up at 9-9 off of a bucket from Natalie Kucowski. Olivia Martino traded threes with Gatzounas of Navy to end the quarter as the Maroon and White ended the opening stanza trailing 13-12.

The Leopards owned the opening five minutes of the second quarter, outscoring the Mids 7-4 over that stretch. Sarah Agnello got things started with a trey and Alexis Santarelli did the rest of the damage, as the Leopards were up 19-17 with 5:18 to play. Navy flipped the script following the media timeout, going on a 9-2 run over the final three minutes. Gatzounas continued to hurt the Leopards, pouring in seven of the nine points for the Mids. Santarelli scored the lone basket to break up the onslaught, but the Leopards were down 28-21 heading into the halftime break.

Lafayette could not find an answer for the Mids attack in the third period, as Navy doubled-up the Leopards, 22-11, for the period. Navy knocked down a game-high 40 percent of their shots during the period as they pulled away from the Leopards. Lafayette kept it close during the opening of the quarter as a long jumper from Anna Ptasinski kept the Leopards within striking distance with the score at 30-26. Navy put its foot on the gas from there, outscoring the Leopards 20-6 to take a 50-32 lead into the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter was scoreless for the opening four minutes, until Martino found her way to the basket and dropped in a layup to make it 50-34. Navy would maintain its lead from there, seeing out the contest over the final six minutes to earn the victory.

Lafayette won the battle on the glass, 43-38. The Leopards bench supplied 28 points of offense compared to 21 from the Mids reserves. The teams' were an identical 33 percent from behind the arc.

Natalie Kucowski reshuffled Lafayette's all-time record books on Wednesday evening, breaking the freshman rebounding record set by Jennifer Bayer '03 in the 1999-00 season. Kucowski has pulled down 261 rebounds to date, which not only give her the freshman record, but also the second-highest single-season total in Lafayette history.

The Maroon and White are on the road for their next contest this Saturday when they travel to the nation's capital for a 1 p.m. showdown with American.