The Lady Hawks came into the Iona Turkey Classic looking for their first win of the season, but came up short against host Iona College, falling 80-47.

"It's disappointing to know we played so poorly against a very good team," said Head Coach Fred Batchelor.  "We can only work to keep it from happening again."

UMES (0-3) continued to struggle from the floor hitting just 30-percent of their shots in the first half.  After Iona's Anda Ivkovic opened the game with a three, Amber Cook responded with a jumper to put the Lady Hawks within one.  Both teams swapped baskets until the Gael's went on a 22-2 run to go up 30-8 with 9:03 remaining in the half.

The Lady Hawks began to attack the basket.  Casey Morton started the rally for UMES.  After grabbing a defensive rebound, she drove up the court and drew a foul on Iona's Kristina Ford.  Morton made both free throws, the first of eight straight made for the Lady Hawks in a two minute time span.  Iona was up by 29 points when Josephine McLane, in her first start of the season, hit a long three with 11 seconds left in the half to put the score at 48-22.

Unfortunately, even with shooting more accurately than the Gael's in the second half, UMES was unable to close the gap and dropped their second straight road game.

Morton finished with a team high 11 points.  Two players came up big off the bench for the Lady Hawks.  Kanzes Battin had a career and game-high seven rebounds, while

Adobi Agbasi knocked out a game-high five blocks.

Iona (5-1), the number one team in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, had four players finish in double-digits.  Leading scorer Thazina Cook had a game-high 18 points, with Ford (13

points), Tomica Bacic (11 points) and Ivkovic (10 points) close behind.

UMES will continue play in the tournament tomorrow at 1 p.m. against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the Hynes Center.