MILTON, Mass. – The Curry College women's basketball team suffered a 53-35 setback to conference foe Western New England University on Thursday night at the Katz Gymnasium.

Western New England's Courtney Carlson (Woodbury, Conn.) notched a game-high 18 points and added five rebounds while Dorothy O'Neill finished with 16 points on four three-pointers and pulled down seven rebounds and handed out six assists. Alyssa Stefanelli (Chicopee, Mass.) was the leading scorer off the bench for the Golden Bears (14-8, 10-5 CCC) with four points.

Junior Emily Irwin (Billerica, Mass.) paced the Colonels (11-11, 7-8 NECC) with 15 points and five boards. Molly Plunkett (Quincy, Mass.) closed out the student-athletes in double figures with 13 points to go along with a team-high seven rebounds.

Western New England led wire-to-wire and limited Curry to single-digit scoring outputs in three of four quarters. After a slow opening frame, the Colonels responded to outscore the Golden Bears in the second, 12-11 but still trailed at the end of the second, 22-17.

The Golden Bears shot 39.6 percent on the afternoon, racked up nine steals, and were aided by 12 Curry turnovers leading to four points.

Western New England built a 32-20 edge in the third on an O'Neill trey as the Colonels deficit hovered from nine to 13 points for the rest of the stanza, which was 39-26 heading into the final quarter of play.

The visitors had another strong quarter to close out the contest, shooting 42.9 percent from the floor in the frame. The Golden Bears were able to stretch the lead to as many as 20 before the end of the contest as they would eventually take the contest by the 18-point margin.

Curry will next play at Roger Williams on Saturday, February 10 at 1:00 p.m. Western New England will host Nichols in a 1:00 p.m. conference contest on Saturday.