Worcester, Mass. - Senior forward Theresa Logan (Southboro, Mass.) tallied all 12 of her points in the second half and sophomore point guard Rachel Pineda (Shrewsbury, Mass.) netted a career-best 11 points to lift the host Worcester Polytechnic Institute Engineers to a 50-45 victory over the Trinity College Bantams in the opening game of the WPI Women's Basketball Holiday Classic on Sunday afternoon.  The win is a season-high third straight for the Engineers, who improve to 6-3 while Trinity dips to 5-4 with its second loss in a row.  Both teams wrap up play Monday in the WPI Holiday Classic. The host Engineers take on Westfield State at 3pm after Trinity squares off with Johnson & Wales at 1pm.

After never trailing in the opening stanza, the Bantams never had a lead in the in the second half.   Logan was key down the stretch as she was the only WPI player to score over the last six minutes.  The co-captain recorded jumpers at 5:45 and 2:20 before draining four free throws in the final 39 seconds.  Trinity had a chance to tie the game came when freshman guard Christina Raiti (Plainview, N.Y.) hit a pair of free throws with 32 seconds left to close the gap to 47-45 and then forced a turnover on a five-second violation, but the Bantams could not capitalize. 

The first half saw six ties and a lead no larger than five points.  The teams were nearly dead even statistically, both shooting 8-for-29 from the field and 4-for-6 from the line and draining one 3-pointer.  WPI held the narrowest of advantages in rebounds (22-21) and turnovers forced (11-10) and used a Dani Davis (East Granby, CT) jumper with 43 seconds to go before intermission to forge a 21-21 tie at the break.

Raiti topped the Trinity scoring attack with 11 points, while junior forward Shantel Hanniford (Nantucket, Mass.) registered all 10 of her points in the first half while corralling seven rebounds. Juniors Taylor Murtaugh (New York, N.Y.) and Moriah Sweeney (Ramsey, N.J.) aided the Bantam's effort on the boards with eight rebounds each while Sweeney and classmate Emily Dixon (Norwood, Mass.) both tossed in six points.

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