Box Score It was bound to happen at some point, and on Saturday night in Ottawa, the top-ranked McMaster women's basketball team lost its first game of the 2016-17 campaign, getting hammered 77-51 by the Carleton Ravens. The defeat snaps the Mac win streak after 11 wins to open the season.

The first half was mostly a see-saw battle with the teams staying within a few points of each other.  But the end of the second quarter foreshadowed the end result as Carleton scored the final nine points of the period to boost a two-point lead into a 38-27 halftime advantage.

Carleton came out firing in the third quarter, knocking down five treys as part of a 17-3 run and Mac trailed 55-30 before it could take a timeout.  The Ravens continued to score almost at will in the third and after 30 minutes had bumped the lead up to 25 at 63-38.

With the final result not in doubt the final stanza was ugly basketball as the closest the Marauders could get was 23 at 72-49, before time mercifully ran out on McMaster.

McMaster was led by Danielle Boiago with 12 and Linnaea Harper with 11, on a night when the Marauders shot just 31% (19 of 60) from the floor and 20% (4 of 20) from 3-point range. McMaster had absolutely no answer for Carleton's 6-3 post Heather Lindsay, who had a dominating game with 25 points and 17 rebounds.   Former Mohawk College star Jenjen Abella had 18 for Carlton, including four 3-pointers.

The Marauders will just have to chalk this up to being one of those games, and put it behind them.  The team will now head into the exam & holiday break, before heading to Halifax, Nova Scotia for the Thunder Selects Holiday tournament December 28-30.