VESTAL, N.Y. – Senior guard
Kai Moon scored a career-high 36 points, powering Binghamton (2-0) to a 74-64 win over Lafayette (1-1) in a non-conference women's basketball game on Friday night at Dr. Bai Lee Court at the Events Center. With the victory, the Bearcats have won their first two games for the second year in a row.
The 36 points scored by Moon ties the fourth-most points scored by a Binghamton player in program history. It also ties the program's Division I era record, set by Imani Watkins against Cornell on Dec. 18, 2017.
One game after finishing with a then career-best 29 points against Siena, Moon shot 9-for-20 from the field and was 5-for-11 from beyond the three-point arc. In addition, she sank 13 of her 14 free throw attempts.
For her career, Moon now has 933 points. She moves into 20th place all-time in program history. Against Lafayette, she surpassed Reagan Stevens, who finished with 923 points from 1993-97.
Senior guard
Carly Boland finished with 15 points, four assists and four rebounds. Fellow senior guard
Karlee Krchnavi added eight points and a team-high 11 rebounds and a pair of assists.
The Bearcats were down by as many as nine points (31-22) in the second period. Led by Moon, however, they were able to rally for the win.
"Lafayette is a good team and in the first half, we had a slow start," head coach
Bethann Shapiro Ord said. "We picked it up defensively and got in our flow of the game. In the second half, we kept grinding it out. It was a good win."
Binghamton began its comeback with a 10-0 run in the final 3:42 of the second period to go up 32-31 at the break. Moon had a team-best six points during that stretch and punctuated the run by converting a layup with 48 seconds left in the first half.
Nursing a 52-50 lead, the Bearcats got back-to-back three-point field goals by Boland to go up by eight points with 5:13 left remaining in the fourth period. The Leopards got to within 60-54 with 4:12 left to go but the Bearcats responded with a 7-3 run in the ensuing 3:28 to take a 67-57 lead.
The victory overshadowed an impressive performance by Natalie Kucowski of Lafayette. She finished with 23 points, a game-high 15 rebounds, three steals and a pair of blocks.
The Leopards had a size advantage up front and led in both rebounds (44-36) and points in the paint (32-20). At the free throw line, however, Lafayette made just 10 of its 20 attempts while the Bearcats also had 20 attempts and converted 17 of them.
Binghamton hosts Bloomsburg on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
NOTES: Bess Greenberg and Jen Gaeta share the school record with 38 points in a game. Greenberg's performance came against Franklin Pierce on Feb. 27, 1999 while Gaeta did the same against Potsdam on Dec. 10, 1993. Gaeta also had 37 points against Fredonia on Feb. 24, 1994 … Moon now has nine career games with at least 20 points. She is the first player to reach the 20-point mark in back-to-back games since Watkins during the 2017-18 season … Krchnavi now has six career games with at least 10 rebounds ... Boland has averaged 15.5 points in the Bearcats' first two games.
