Failor, Murray Set Career Highs in Win Over Colgate

Wednesday, January 13

West Point, N.Y.

7 PM

Army West Point

13-2, 4-1PL

Colgate

3-12, 1-4PL

Colgate

Army West Point

Failor, Murray Set Career Highs in Win Over Colgate

January 13, 2016 | Women's Basketball

Box Score

WEST POINT, N.Y. – Junior Dani Failor and sophomore Aliyah Murray each posted career highs in a number of categories as the Army West Point women's basketball team notched a 67-55 Patriot League win over Colgate on Wednesday night at Christl Arena.

Army wins its third in a row to improve to 13-2 overall and 4-1 in the league, while Colgate falls to 3-12 and 1-4.

Failor, who hadn't played since Dec. 11 against NJIT, set career standards of 21 points, eight field goals and five free-throws after shooting 8-of-10 from the floor and 5-of-5 at the charity stripe. Murray tallied career bests of 12 points and nine rebounds, while sinking a college-best five shots on 5-of-8 shooting.

Senior Kelsey Minato finished with 18 points and a season-high nine boards, while going a perfect 10-of-10 from the foul line. Classmate Brianna Johnson added nine points and four rebounds.

Paige Kriftcher led Colgate with 15 points, while Katie Curtis and Josie Stockill also netted double-digit points, with 13 and 12, respectively. Stockill also added six rebounds and three blocks.

"I wasn't surprised with how Colgate came out," said head coach Dave Magarity. "This group that they have and our senior class have a lot of history. We've played them more than any other team in the last three years because of our tournament matchups and every game seems to be a tough game. They played really well tonight.

"We persevered and then, what was a one or two possession game, we stretched it to an 18-point lead. To have Dani come back after a month layoff and have a career night and have Aliyah have her career night, really says a lot about our team."

Both teams opened the game without a point for the first 2:58, as Army was 0-for-4 from the field and Colgate was 0-for-1 with five early turnovers. Johnson gave the Black Knights a quick 3-0 lead, with a triple at the 7:01 mark of the period, but Curtis answered with a three-pointer of her own for the Raiders as part of a 7-0 run that gave the visitors a 7-3 advantage with 5:17 left in the first frame.

Colgate stretched its lead to six points, 13-7, after a pair of free-throws by Mylah Chandler that came with 43 seconds remaining in the first period. The hosts responded with five consecutive points to finish out the quarter, including an old-fashioned three-point play from Minato with three seconds left to make the score 13-12, in favor of the Raiders.

Colgate started the second frame with five unanswered points to bring the score to 18-12 after 1:32 before Army scored eight of the game's next 10 points to trim its deficit back to a point, 20-19, at the 6:50 mark of the second quarter.

The Black Knights eventually came back to tie the game at 23-23, following a lay-in from Murray with 5:07 left in the second before Minato sank three straight free-throws during an 11-0 Army run that put the hosts up, 30-24, with 3:11 remaining in the first half.

Each team scored four points in the final 2:27 of the opening half, including two points from Murray, who got a friendly roll on a last-second lay-up to make the score 34-28 at the break.

Colgate regained the lead early in the second half, thanks to a 12-4 run by the Raiders that ended with a pair of free-throws from Kriftcher and made the score 40-38 by the 6:01 point of the third period.

Army responded with a 6-0 run that included four points from Failor to go ahead by four with 4:54 left in the third.

The Raiders came back to cut the hosts' deficit to two, 44-42, before Army used a 9-0 run to control a 53-42 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Colgate used a brief 6-2 run to start the second half and pulled back to within seven, 55-48, before Army put together an 11-0 run that lasted 2:50 and left the Black Knights with a 66-48 advantage with 3:40 on the clock. Failor and Murray combined to score all 11 points during the scoring stretch, as Failor chipped in eight and Murray added three.

Army kept Colgate within an 11-point distance the rest of the way, as the Raiders made the score 66-55 with 1:15 left after a 7-0 run, but didn't come any closer.

Army is on the road this weekend, when the Black Knights travel to Washington, D.C., to face American on Saturday, Jan. 16 at 2 p.m.

GAME NOTES: Army improves to 38-21 all-time versus Colgate, with its fourth straight win over the Raiders … Failor led all scorers with a career-high 21 points … she also posted career standards with eight field goals and five free-throws … Murray finished with career bests in points (12), rebounds (9) and field goals (5) … the Black Knights shot 80.0 percent (20-of-25) from the free-throw stripe … Army forced 20 turnovers to mark the fifth time this season it has forced at least 20 … Minato became Army's career leader in free-throws made, reaching 506 for her career to pass Katie Macfarlane's (USMA '04) previous record of 498 ... Minato also increased her Army scoring record to 2,167 career points … Coach Magarity collected the 495th win of his career (495-441).