NEW YORK, N.Y. — 

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy women's basketball team picked up a 78-62 win at John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Tuesday. Coast Guard took the lead just before the halfway mark in the first quarter and never relinquished it, despite the best efforts of their hosts.

The Bears improve to 3-1 on the season, while John Jay stays winless at 0-4. The Bloodhounds will hunt again for their first win this Friday when they host William Patterson University (2-0) for their annual Homecoming game.

Dorothy Stotts (Edina, Minn.) was Coast Guard's top scorer with her second career 30-point game. The senior guard shot 11-for-21 from the field and 5-for-11 on threes while contributing six assists. Olivia Wright (Midlothian, Va.) had a team-high eight rebounds to go with 13 points, while Taylor Lynch (Madison, Ind.) led all players with eight assists and picked up a pair of steals. Leading the Bloodhounds with a big double-double was Michaela Lattimore, who dropped 22 and pulled down a game-high 13 boards. On defense, Colleen Finnegan (Dover, Pa.) and fellow freshman Elliot Geer (Grove, Okla.) combined for half of the Bears 12 steals on the night, totaling three each.

The Bears took the lead on a Finnegan layup with 6:42 to go in the first and maintained the upper hand for the rest of the game. Back-to-back layups by Mackenzie Hilden (Broomall, Pa.) gave the Bears a seven-point lead with just over 30 seconds left in the opening period, but the Bloodhounds kept Coast Guard from taking a lead that big again until late in the second. John Jay had cut their deficit down to three after a pair of sunk free throws, but Wright proceeded to score the next six before another Finnegan layup gave the Bears an 11-point lead. Essence Richardson drained a three to cut into it again, but Stotts splashed a triple of her own to negate it just before halftime.

John Jay scored the first eight points coming out of halftime to shorted Coast Guard's leash to 43-40 just under two minutes into the third, but the Bears were eventually able to go back up ten with three-and-a-half to go following six points on three straight layup by Stotts. The two teams traded buckets before back-to-back jumpers from John Jay made it 57-52 in CGA's favor heading into the third. The Bloodhounds were ultimately unable to capitalize on the momentum and proceeded to go 4-for-17 in the final period. The Bears shot 5-for-13 while taking advantage of the hosts eight fouls in the period, going 10-for-12 from the line. A three-pointer by Georgia Pauli (Tiburon, Calif.) acted as the dagger, putting the Bears up by 18 with 2:30 to play.

Bears women's basketball will look to make it three consecutive wins on Thursday with a victory at Suffolk University (4-0). It will be the first meeting between the two programs since the 2000 season, which was a 61-50 victory for the Rams.