uChristie Iwanicki (NHS ’07) tossed in a career-high 13 points with five steals and four assists to help lead the Suffolk University women’s basketball team to a 77-56 win over Lesley on Saturday. Sophomore Stephanie Zito of Guilford did the most damage, canning 23 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. The Lady Rams forced 34 turnovers to improve to 3-2 on the season. They overcame an early one-point deficit with a 21-6 run over a five-minute stretch to open up a 32-18 lead on a Zito three-pointer with 7:12 remaining in the opening half before settling for a 41-31 advantage at the break, and Suffolk scored 22 of the first 28 points after intermission in taking a 26-point edge (63-37) midway through the second half, building its lead to as many as 28 points in the closing minutes of action. The Lady Rams opened with a pair of wins over Westfield State (67-57) and MIT (61-42) before falling to Colby-Sawyer (57-49) and Endicott (79-54). Games at Curry, Wentworth and Framingham State come up before the semester break.

uThe Bucknell University swimming and diving teams closed out the weekend at Princeton’s Big Al Open by setting four program top-10 marks on Sunday. While the men finished in seventh place, the women totaled 55 and placed 11th out of 11 schools even though sophomore Abigail Atkinson (NHS ’05) posted two of the Bucknell top-10 marks. She finished 24th in the 200 breastroke at 2:28.63 after moving into ninth on the program’s top 10 list with her career-best time of 2:28.22 in the preliminaries. Atkinson also set a new personal best in the 200 backstroke, as well, posting a time of 2:08.31 in the preliminaries, which ranks 10th in Bucknell history. She went on to place 21st in the final with a time of 2:08.99. The Bison will next travel to Hamilton, New York, for a Patriot League dual-meet against Colgate, which is set for 1 pm on January 12.

uCody Arnoux’s two second-half goals sparked the Wake Forest men’s soccer team to a 3-1 win over West Virginia in the third round of the NCAA men’s soccer tournament Sunday at Spry Stadium. The Demon Deacons advance to the quarterfinals where they will host Notre Dame Saturday night at 7 p.m. The Mountaineers – boasting a 14-0 record when scoring first – took a 1-0 lead on a penalty kick with 40:27 remaining in the second half. Wake Forest knotted the game minutes later when the Deacs put together a string of passes that resulted the tying goal. Wake outshot West Virginia 10-3 in the first half and had several scoring opportunities that came up empty, including a shot from Marcus Tracy (NHS ’05) that eluded Johnson and had to be saved by a Mountaineer defender. The Deacs outshot West Virginia 21-7 for the match. Wake Forest (19-2-2) broke the all-time record for wins in a season with the victory. – As reported on wakeforestsports.cstv.com

uLed by 11 first place finishes and strong performances on the boards, the St. Bonaventure men’s swimming and diving team defeated La Salle 168-130 on Saturday, November 10, at the Reilly Center. Senior CJ Maurer (NHS ’04) won the three-meter diving competition with a season-best score of 300.08 and added a second-place finish in the one-meter diving at 242.40 points. The Bonnies went on to finish third at the Akron Invite last weekend, which did not include diving. The Brown and White earned a total of 1,247 points in 20 events. Xavier claimed the top spot with 1,390 points, while two-day leader Clarion finished second with 1,322 points.

uThe DePauw University women’s swimming & diving scored 835 points and cruised to a first-place finish at the Depauw Invitational last weekend. It was the second year in a row the Tigers won their own invitational. Wittenberg was runner-up with 533 points. Sally Tabler (NHS ’07) was second in the 200 butterfly on Friday with a mark of 2:13.54 and then helped lead the 800 freestyle relay team to a second-place finish in 8:12.94 and the to runner-up Wittenberg’s 533 and won their second straight DePauw Invitational.400 medley relay team to a 12th-place finish in 4:16.17. On Saturday, Tabler was third in the 400 individual medley at 4:45.20 and second in the 200 breaststroke at 2:34.55. The Tigers won’t return to the pool until January 18 and 19 for the Washington-St. Louis Invitational.

uThe Saint Michael’s College women’s swimming and diving team finished sixth on Sunday at the three-day Northeast-10 Conference Championships, hosted by Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. Tierney Carey (NHS ’05) was second in the one-meter diving with 317.25 points and fourth in the three-meter diving with 259.00 points.  The Purple Knights returned to action on Wednesday at Potsdam and will host Skidmore on Saturday, but will take a break until Sunday, January 13, when they travel to Bentley College.

uThe Western New England College men’s basketball team dropped to 3-3 with a 63-51 loss to Amherst College … which came after back-to-back wins over the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (73-68) and Springfield College (59-54). Mike Kennedy (NHS ’07) is a 6-4 freshman center, but has yet to see any minutes.

——————

*If there is a local athlete not listed here, please email us at sports@thebee.com