The seedings for the quarterfinal round of the City University of New York Athletic Conference Championships now set following Monday's action, the Lehman Lightning, who will be the No. 3 seed, entertained visiting Rutgers-Newark on Tuesday night in a game that, if nothing else, gave head coach Eric Harrison a chance to sharpen certain aspects of his team's play heading into Saturday.

Despite the Scarlet Raiders ultimately gaining the 70-60 victory, the Lightning continued to re-establish its post game, giving Hunter College – Lehman's opponent on Saturday – something additional for which to gameplan. Junior Jaleesa Gordon was once again active and aggressive around the basket, tallying game highs of 28 points and 14 rebounds. The 28-point effort was also a season high and came on an efficient 15 shot attempts.

Unfortunately for the Lightning Gordon was one of the few who brought her A-game as Amanda De La Cruz (1-11 FG, 2 points) and Louvinia Hayes (6-18 FG, 23 points) suffered through off nights. Absent her outside game, Hayes repeatedly took the ball to the basket to draw fouls. Her aggressiveness allowed her to cash in 9-of-10 at the foul line which buoyed her final point total.

Normally a team that utilizes a heavy dose of full-court pressure defense, the Lightning instead played a conventional man-to-man for nearly all of Tuesday's contest in a nod to preparation for Saturday. The result was an extremely low turnover number (9) for Rutgers-Newark, a fact that can also be attributed to a Scarlet Raiders' team excellent at handling the basketball.

But in spite of the Lightning's mixing, matching and testing of strategy, it still managed to turn what looked like it might be a runaway Rutgers-Newark win into a close affair.

Trailing 40-25 after Kristen Venning's jump shot, the Lightning manufactured a 16-4 run behind seven points from Gordon to pull within 44-41 with 12:08 remaining. However, the Scarlet Raiders answered with an 11-4 run of their own, capped by a Venning three-pointer to push the lead back to double digits at 55-45.

Venning was not done inflicting damage on the Lightning either. Following Louvinia Hayes' layup that cut the Lightning deficit to 59-53, Venning took the ball hard to the rack on the fast break and converted while absorbing contact from Hayes. Her layup and ensuing free throw proved to be the backbreaker even though Lehman chopped its deficit to four once more with one minute remaining.

When the smoke cleared, Venning had registered 17 second half points, her final total for the game. Teammate Jared Tactuk bagged 11 second half points on her way to a team-high 22. Tactuk was sharp from the outside, canning 5-of-9 three-pointers on the evening.

Lehman finishes the regular season with a 15-10 overall record and will now take the next few days to prepare for its matchup with visiting Hunter College. The teams will toss the ball up at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon on Lehman's Bronx campus.