The American University women's basketball team trailed at the end of the first half, but used an 11-2 run to start the second half to retake the lead and extend its Patriot League regular season unbeaten streak to 16, defeating Colgate 54-45 Saturday afternoon in Bender Arena.

Alexis Dobbs led the Eagles with 12 points as Jen Dumiak and Geleisa George chipped in 10 apiece. Sarah Kiely grabbed nine rebounds for American with Stephanie Anya and Arron Zimmerman each contributing eight. George dished out four assists while Dobbs tallied four steals.

"We started off slow and didn't really get into a rhythm in the first half and that's partly due to good defense on Colgate's part, they guarded us well and didn't give us a lot of easy shots," said Head Coach Matt Corkery. "I thought we showed a lot of mental toughness by continuing to defend really well even though maybe on offense things weren't going to well. We defended really consistently for 40 minutes."

American (8-7, 1-0) struck first with back-to-back buckets from Zimmerman and Dobbs but the Raiders posted six unanswered points to take a 12-8 lead. Consecutive lay-ups from Anya and Shaquilla Curtis tied it at 12 with 6:17 remaining in the half. The Raiders answered with an 8-2 run for the 24-19 lead heading into the intermission.

Both teams shot 31.0 percent from the field in the first half, but Colgate (6-9, 0-1) outshot the Eagles from beyond the arc. The Raiders went 4-for-10 from three-point range while American did not convert a three-pointer despite 10 attempts.

The Eagles came out of the break with an 11-2 run to go up 30-26 with 14:29 left in the game, before Lauryn Kobiela drained a three and Jhazmine Lynch laid it in after a steal from Paige Kriftcher to give the Raiders back the 31-30 advantage. Dobbs answered after the dish from Dumiak to put American back in the lead for good.

The Eagles began to find their rhythm as George converted a three-point play and Ti'Asia McGeorge sunk her first trey of the game for the 40-31 advantage with 7:32 left. Dobbs nailed back-to-back three-pointers to give American its largest lead of the game, 50-39, with 1:41 remaining and the Eagles were able to convert 4-of-5 free throws down the stretch for the 54-45 victory.

Lynch posted a team-high 10 points for Colgate with Kelly Reid notching a game-high 11 boards. Mariah Jones and Lynch each had a team-best three assists in the game.

American finished the game outshooting the Raiders, 37.3 to 27.6 percent. Colgate outshot the Eagles from beyond the arc, going 30.0 percent compared to American's 14.3 percent shooting from three-point range.

The Eagles remain unbeaten in Patriot League regular season action, extending its streak to 16 straight wins in regular season conference play dating back to the 2010-11 season.

American heads to Bethlehem, Pa. next to take on Lehigh on Wednesday, January 16 at 7 p.m. The Eagles are back in Bender Arena on Saturday, January 19 at 2 p.m. to face Holy Cross in a rematch of last year's Patriot League Semifinals. Both games will be broadcast live on Patriot League All*Access.