Did the Buffalo women’s basketball players have redemption on their minds heading into Saturday’s game against visiting Toledo?

Stephanie Bennett didn’t even need to hear the entire question before nodding with enthusiasm.

“Oh yeah,” Bennett said, following UB’s 60-45 win. “We owe them big time.”

Bennett and her senior classmates beat Toledo for the first time in their careers, as the Bulls (12-10 overall, 5-4 league) won a Mid-American Conference game at home for the first time this season.

The Rockets knocked UB out on the first day of the MAC Tournament last season. Losses against Toledo in the two seasons prior kept UB out of postseason play.

“Toledo was a big rival for the older girls,” said Heather Turner, a senior who had 12 point and 10 rebounds. “And the younger girls too, could see that it was a big game.”

Honored before the game for becoming the 17th UB player to surpass 1,000 career points, Bennett had 14 points Saturday, sharing top-scoring honors with Jamie Schiebner. Bennett had a game-high five assists and Schiebner had nine rebounds.

After taking a 38-31 lead into halftime, the Bulls held the Rockets under 15 percent shooting (4-for-27) over the final 20 minutes.

“That’s pretty awesome,” coach Linda Hill-MacDonald said. “We hope it’s the defense. We hope it wasn’t just them not shooting well.”

“I think our defense got in their heads,” Turner said. “We came out, we had a good gameplan, we executed. I think they were unsure of themselves. The defense kind of struck them, and they weren’t ready for it.”

Toledo (10-11, 3-6) was led by 14 points from Olivia Terry and 12 points from Lisa Johnson.

The Bulls played before a season-high crowd of 1,025. Most fans, including nearly all of the students in attendance, wore pink to raise awareness for breast cancer research. UB players wore pink warm-up shirts, pink headbands and pink wristbands, coaches from both teams wore sneakers, and UB’s student fan club, True Blue, donated $2,000 to the Breast Cancer Network for Western New York.

“Its always fun to play in front of a lot of people because it brings a lot of energy into the arena,” Bennett said. “It gets us fired up. We don’t get that a lot, so it’s very special. And today was a very special day, looking up in the stands and seeing how many people are supporting breast cancer.”



ECC 75, NCCC 42

Jeanette Dumais (Starpoint) had 17 points, 12 rebounds and three assists for the Trailblazers in an NJCAA Western New York Athletic Conference loss. Lisa Batt (Starpoint) had 11 points and 10 boards.

Kayla Mahiques led ECC with 19 points.



Men's basketball

ECC 95, NCCC 74

Armando Rosario played all 40 minutes for the Trailblazers, notching 22 points, four assists, four steals and holding Katz star Ray Blackburn to 13 points, 10 below his average, but it wasn’t enough against the 13th-ranked team in the country.

NCCC (4-15, 2-8 WNYAC) was within four late in the first half, but turned the ball over on two straight trips, allowing ECC (20-5, 9-1) to take a 46-36 lead into the intermission.

“We came out with our heads down and they scored the first nine points of the second half and we never recovered,” NCCC coach Frank Rotundo said.

Rob Linhart (Newfane) had 16 points and six rebounds for the Trailblazers.



Women’s tennis

Buffalo 6, Syracuse 1

Visiting Syracuse was no match for the University at Buffalo on Saturday, as the Bulls earned the win at the Village Glen Tennis Center. UB is 2-0 this season in dual matches.

UB’s No. 1 doubles team of Denise Harijanto and Diana Popescu earned a win, while the Bulls also got wins in doubles from the teams of Smaranda Stan-Diana Toia and Andreea Novaceanu-Tina Jacob.

Novaceanu, Popescu, Stan, Toia and Jacob all won at singles for UB. Simone Kalhorn won at second singles for Syracuse.



Women's hockey

Niagara 3, Robert Morris 2 (OT)

The Purple Eagles snapped a 17-game winless streak, tying the game late in the third and scoring the winner right after killing a penalty.

“There are a lot of happy girls on this bus right now,” Niagara coach Margot Page said. “They kept pushing through and hopefully this win will help us gain momentum and get the ball rolling for us again.”