WORCESTER, Mass. -- Playing without a number of key players, the No. 22 nationally ranked Bates women's basketball team fell 48-46 on the road to WPI Wednesday evening.

Bates (7-2) went into the contest without leading rebounder senior Ariana Dalia (Brick, N.J.) and it showed, with WPI (8-1) out-rebounding the Bobcats 48-35 and out-scoring Bates 32-20 in the paint. The Bobcats only used seven players total while the WPI bench accounted for 30 of the team's 48 points, with Bates' bench chipping in five.
 
One of those off the bench efforts for the Engineers was a game-high 15-point night from Emily Raynowska, who also added nine rebounds. Kara O'Neil added 11 points, seven rebounds and shot 55.6 percent from the field. 
 
Bates was led by sophomore Morgan Kennedy (Oklahoma City, Okla.) and junior Brianna Gadaleta (Chappaqua, N.Y.) who turned in 12-point performances while junior captain Meghan Graff's (South Portland, Maine) effort down the stretch propelled her to a team-high 13 points. Gadaleta finished with a double-double, recording a game-high 11 rebounds.
 
The two teams traded leads throughout the first quarter with Bates leading after the first 10 minutes of action, 15-12, thanks to a Morgan Kennedy layup that landed with five seconds remaining in the stanza. 
 
The two teams were evenly matched throughout the second frame as well as three-straight early buckets, including back-to-back tallies from Raynowska and one from O'Neil, gave the Engineers a 20-17 lead with 6:26 to go. An Alyson Kennedy (Oklahoma City, Okla.) trey for Bates evened the score at 22-all and a Gadaleta jumper with one minute to go in the first half put the Bobcats on top by two heading into the intermission, 24-22. 
 
WPI made its move in the third quarter thanks to three-straight buckets from Raynowska to turn a 28-28 deadlock into a 34-28 Engineer advantage. Raynowska would ultimately rally off 11-straight points for WPI during the final 4:41 of action in the third quarter helping WPI to a 39-33 lead with 10 minutes to go. 
 
After Bates cut the lead to four, Alex Scariati drained a three to make it a seven-point game. Five-straight points from Graff for Bates made things interesting down the stretch as she was able to make it a two-point ballgame, 48-46 with just over a minute to go, but the Engineers were able to hold off the Bobcats.
 
Bates will take on Susquehanna Thursday afternoon at 4pm in its second game of the Holiday Tournament.