ALBANY, N.Y. – Host UAlbany (20-3, 9-1 AE) outscored Binghamton (9-14, 4-6 AE) 23-10 in the third period and went on to win 60-52 in an America East women's basketball game on Thursday morning at the Broadview FCU Arena. The game marked the first of three straight road contests for the Bearcats.

Lilly Phillips led the first-place Great Danes with 19 points – going a perfect 9-for-9 from the free throw line in the process. Also reaching double figures in scoring was Kayla Cooper, who netted 13 points and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.

For the Bearcats, junior forward Genevieve Coleman led the way with 17 points. She was 7-for-9 from the field and canned all three of her three-point field goal shots.

Graduate student guard Denai Bowman had another strong performance with 15 points to go along with three assists, two steals and a block. She now has 1,424 points for her career and remains in sixth place all time in Binghamton program history.

Binghamton jumped out to 27-21 lead at the half. In the final 5:45 of the second period, the Bearcats outscored the Great Danes 7-0. Bowman scored four points and freshman forward Kendall Bennett added three points during that stretch.

In the third period, the Bearcats appeared to keep the momentum when Bowman drained a three-point field goal to put her team up 33-27 with 6:45 left to go. From there, however, UAlbany closed out the period on a 17-4 run to take a 44-37 lead. Cooper and Phillips combined for 13 points during that stretch.

The Great Danes then led by at least six points during the remainder of the game.

"We started to let them dictate things in the second half," head coach Bethann Shapiro Ord. "We weren't attacking them offensively and we can't play on our heels like we did. UAlbany is a very good team but again, we needed to play better in the second half."

UAlbany came into the game ranked second in the nation in scoring defense (51.1 ppg.).

Bennett finished with eight points and tied her career highs in both rebounds (six) and blocks (three). Redshirt sophomore guard Jadyn Weltz had seven points and dished out a game-high five assists.

Also grabbing a team-best six rebounds for Binghamton was sophomore forward Camryn Fauria.

Both teams had identical shooting percentages (40.8), going 20-49 from the field. At the free throw line, however, the Bearcats were 6-for-9 but UAlbany made 15 of its 19 attempts.

The Great Danes also finished with a 32-25 edge in rebounds and a 19-8 margin in points off of turnovers.

Binghamton heads to Bryant on Saturday for a 2 p.m. game.