The Bears (14-4 overall, 6-1 UAA) beat Rochester 83-78 and topped Emory 99-88 in the final two contests of a four-game home stand.

Senior guard Dylan Richter, the Bears’ leading scorer at 17.3 points per game, dropped 56 points combined in the two games, including a career-high 33 against Emory.

Richter was nearly automatic from three-point range in the first half against the Eagles, cashing in five of seven attempts. He scored 16 of the Bears’ first 24 points, turning an eight-point deficit into a two-point advantage. The Bears took control from there, clamping down on defense and finding the open man on their offensive possessions.

Sophomore guard Alan Aboona led the display of precision passing with 10 of the Bears’ 14 first half assists. He finished with 12 total in the game.

The Red and Green took a 35-24 lead after Aboona lobbed a pass inside to sophomore forward Chris Klimek, who finished a layup and was fouled. Klimek missed the free throw, but the play secured momentum for the Bears.

Later in the half, freshman forward Matt Palucki scored seven straight points for a 46-30 lead, bringing the crowd to its feet for Emory’s final possession. A three-pointer by the Eagles made it 46-33 at the game’s midway point.

After scoring 21 points in the game’s first 20 minutes, Richter continued to put on a show in the second half, hitting four more three-pointers. In 38 minutes of play, he finished with nine makes on 13 attempts from downtown.

The Bears led 72-59 with 10:17 to play, but Emory would not go away quietly. The visiting team continued to apply a full-court press and harass the Bears’ ball-handlers in the half-court set. The Eagles’ three-point shots began to fall as well, helping them close in to 82-74 with 4:20 left. An errant pass by Klimek allowed the Eagles to retain possession, and they responded with a three-point basket to draw within five.

After Palucki hit two free throws at the other end, a reach-in call on sophomore guard Tim Cooney sent Emory to the free throw line for a one-and-one. But Emory’s Justin Resnick missed the first free throw, and Aboona found Palucki for a layup to make it 86-77 with under three minutes to play. Palucki had 19 points and 10 rebounds in 26 minutes off the bench.

Emory resorted to an ultimately futile fouling strategy for the remainder of the game.

“It’s tough with [Emory] because they’re really up-tempo,” Richter said. “They push the ball on the break and they’re full-court pressing the whole game, so it’s tough to keep up, but at the same time we tried not to play at their tempo—we tried to get it our pace. So once we get it to half-court, we set up a play, and we try to keep running our stuff.”

Two days earlier, junior guard Ben Hoener’s career-high 20 points off the bench helped the Red and Green eke out a win over Rochester. Wash. U. didn’t trail after the 9:08 mark in the first half, but its largest advantage was only 10 points. Rochester came within one point twice in the final six minutes, but the Bears managed to stay ahead each time.

“One of the things our team takes a lot of pride in this year is that we have a lot of depth…and we don’t really have drop-off coming in off the bench,” Hoener said. “And when your team is that deep, and there’s so many guys that contribute, you can maintain a high level of focus, a high level of play for a long time. And that definitely helped [against Rochester], especially in the second half.”

Richter poured in 23 points Friday on seven for 11 shooting, including three for seven three-point shooting.

Senior center Alex Toth had 10 points, seven rebounds and five steals, and Klimek chipped in 15 points on six for eight shooting.

The Bears will face Rochester again on Friday, Feb. 3, and Emory on Sunday, Feb. 5, but this time the games are on the road.

“It’s tough to go back-to-back with these two teams, and it’s tough to go on the road,” Richter said. “So we’re going to take [Monday] off, rest up a little bit and then prepare this week.”

The Bears fell into a three-way tie for first place in the University Athletic Association after the loss to NYU and an 80-54 home win over Brandeis on Friday. The Bears are tied with NYU and No. 8 Emory University at 4-1 in conference play.

NYU shot a blistering 66 percent from the field to improve to 14-1 overall and drop Wash. U. to 12-4. Guard Kyle Stockmal and center Andy Stein combined for 41 points on 15-18 shooting for the Violets. The Bears played a solid all-around game but could not contain the dynamic NYU offense.

“When [NYU is] running a system like that [and playing patiently] and they know what they’re looking for… it makes it very difficult for us to come back,” head coach Mark Edwards said. “That’s the hard part about it—you have to play flawlessly.”

In the first half, NYU’s stifling defense frustrated the Bears, who fell behind 21-8 after a string of turnovers led to open looks for NYU on the other end. Wash. U. fought back with inside baskets and some defensive aggressiveness of their own, but NYU headed into the break with a 38-27 edge. The Bears were off target from the three-point range against the tight perimeter defense, converting only two of 10 attempts.

NYU opened the second half with a three-point basket, but Wash. U. answered on a layup by senior center Alex Toth and a three-pointer by sophomore guard Alan Aboona. The Bears narrowed their deficit to six points on a three-pointer by freshman guard Brayden Teuscher with 15:31 left, but momentum returned to NYU after a timeout.

“Some teams will go out of their system and do one-on-one kind of stuff; some people will create for themselves,” said senior guard Dylan Richter, who led the Bears with 18 points on 7-23 shooting, “But they stick to their system, and they run it really well. We played well—we had a game plan for it—but everything just fell their way, whether it was shots or loose balls.”

The Red and Green’s fortune was much better two days earlier against Brandeis.

A week after poor three-point and free-throw accuracy nearly did them in versus Carnegie Mellon, the Bears responded with their best all-around shooting game of the season on Friday. The team made 56.4 percent of its field goals and held Brandeis to 35.3 percent shooting en route to a blowout win.

The Bears were 8-15 from three-point range and 10-13 from the free-throw line. Richter and Aboona combined for 33 points on an efficient 17 shot attempts.

Teuscher, who had nine points and seven assists in 19 minutes off the bench, credited the Bears’ shooting turnaround to a pair of factors.

“Part of it is just being at home and being more comfortable in our home gym than we would be on the road, and another part of it is we just played with a lot more confidence and aggressiveness,” Teuscher said.

Brandeis jumped out to an 8-3 lead in the first two minutes, but a 13-2 run by the Bears quickly turned the deficit into a distant memory. Wash. U. raced ahead of Brandeis with 60.9 percent first half shooting, heading into the intermission with a 41-31 lead.

Brandeis could not find any rhythm in the second half as the Bears kept finding and hitting open shots. Aboona followed up a three-pointer with a driving layup for a 50-33 advantage with 16:21 to play. Later in the half, Brandeis endured a stretch of only three points scored in almost eight minutes, allowing Wash. U. to take a 30-point lead.

“Our coaches did a good job of knowing how we should be defending them,” Teuscher said. “We really executed what the coaches told us to do, so that was a lot of times getting out on the personnel we knew were shooters or covering certain plays.”

Edwards used his third different starting lineup in the last six games, replacing Teuscher with sophomore guard Tim Cooney for the weekend.

The Bears face University of Rochester on Friday, Jan. 20, and Emory University on Sunday, Jan. 22, in the Wash. U. Field House.

The Bears defeated the Brandeis University Judges 2-0 on Sunday and the New York University Violets 2-1 on Friday night, extending their winning streak to five games.

The Judges pressed the Bears hard during the first portion of the game, disrupting the Bears’ possession-oriented style of play.

“In our recent games, we’ve played better teams that put more pressure on us,” senior forward Dylan Roman said. “They’ve made it harder to pass the ball around.”

The Bears made a breakthrough in the 39th minute off a corner kick. Seniors Cody Costakis and Zach Hendrickson each recorded an assist, as senior Michael Chamberlin headed home the game’s first goal. Costakis now leads the team with six assists, the second most in the conference.

“It was a chippy game,” Roman said. “There was a lot of hard play and non-calls. The referee wasn’t calling anything.”

The Red and Green put away the insurance goal in the 84th minute. Roman assisted junior Zachary Query in converting a 2-on-1 situation, set up by senior midfielder Patrick McLean’s through ball.

The Bears were outshot 17 to 9 by the Judges, but sophomore goalie Jonathan Jebson made a career high nine saves to preserve the shutout. Jebson has a 0.61 goals against average this season with five shutouts in 13 games.

“We knew these games were going to be challenging and the centerbacks have stepped up a lot,” Jebson said. “The whole five-man rotation has played well.”

The Friday night game against New York University was also closely contested. The Bears won with a 68th-minute goal by junior Kenji Kobayashi off another Costakis corner kick. Despite the 2-1 scoreline, Wash. U. was outshot 10-7.

The Bears went up 1-0 in the third minute with a Roman breakaway goal, only to see the Violets equalize in the 40th minute off of a header. Roman poached a misplaced back pass and finished in the lower right corner. He leads the team with seven goals.

The Violets almost came back at the end on a breakaway chance that was saved by Jebson.

“[The NYU player] beat the right back down the wing and got a breakaway,” Jebson said. “I slid and stopped it with my hands, and we cleared it.”

Jebson said one thing he thinks the defense can work on is winning corner kicks and headers.

Wash. U. is now 12-1 overall and is in first place in the UAA, with a 3-0 in-conference record. The Bears are ranked eighth in the country and have outscored their opponents 32-9. Their only loss came against No. 15 Dominican University.

Women’s soccer
(13-2-1, 5-0-1 UAA)

Best case: UAA champion if Wash. U. beats Chicago, Case defeats Rochester

Worst case: UAA Runner-up if Wash. U. loses to Chicago, Rochester defeats Case

The No. 8 women’s soccer team holds a one-point lead over the University of Rochester and defeated the Yellowjackets 2-1 in overtime on Oct. 18.

If Rochester beats Case Western Reserve University at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday night and the Bears do not defeat Chicago, the Yellowjackets will win the conference. The Bears must beat Chicago for the outright title as Rochester defeated Emory. Emory tied with Wash. U. on Oct. 17. Two ties are worse than a loss, according to senior co-captain Becca Heymann.

Volleyball
(25-3, 7-0 UAA)

Best case: UAA champion if Bears advance to championship match and win

Worst case: Place in the top four of UAA teams if they fail to make the championship match

The No. 3 Wash. U. volleyball team defeated every UAA team in round robin play, earning the top seed in this weekend’s UAA championships. No. 4 Emory University is the top seed in the other pool. The Bears swept Emory (25-19, 25-17, 25-18) on Oct. 17. Wash. U. takes on NYU, Rochester and Case in pool A. The champions of both pools play for the UAA championship.

The Bears also are the top-ranked team in the region and have a good chance of hosting at least one round of the NCAA tournament.

Men’s soccer
(9-6-3, 3-3 UAA)

Best case: If all teams lose above Wash. U. lose and the Bears win, Wash. U. will still be in fourth

Worst case: If Emory beats Carnegie Mellon and Wash. U. falls to Chicago, the Bears will be in fifth place in the UAA standings

The Bears are currently in fourth place in the UAA rankings and face Chicago (4-1-1 UAA). With losses to Carnegie Mellon and Rochester, which lead the conference with a 5-1 record, the Bears have no chance of winning UAAs. Carnegie Mellon plays Emory, while Rochester is up against Case Western Reserve.

In terms of gaining an NCAA bid, beating Chicago, the fourth-ranked team in the Central Region, would give the Bears a quality win in their favor.

The postseason fate of both soccer teams and volleyball will be announced on Nov. 9.