New London — It’s been a pretty happy season for the Connecticut College women’s basketball team. The Camels knocked off defending New England Small School Athletic Conference champion Tufts in December. They’re closing in on their most wins in over 20 seasons.

Now if the Camels could just figure out how to get past Amherst.

Conn got too far behind in the first half of its 72-61 loss to the unbeaten Lady Jeffs at Luce Fieldhouse. It trailed by 18 points at halftime, and Amherst scored the first five points of the third quarter to go ahead 49-26.

“We go into every game when we play Amherst like they’re unbeatable, and they’re a really, really good team,” Camels senior Willa McKinley said. “I think our nerves were really playing with us.”

Conn (13-2, 3-1) has lost nine straight games to the Lady Jeffs, its last win coming way back on Feb. 2, 2007.

“We didn’t want to come into this game and (think) Amherst has been to the Final Four several times and won a nation championship (in 2011),” Camels coach Brian Wilson said. “I thought we were evenly matched and wanted to rip that aura away. We’re not playing the 1985 Celtics or the 2015 Warriors. We’re playing a very good basketball team, but I think we’re a very good basketball team as well.

“We didn’t play our best basketball in the first half.”

The Camels shot 32.3 percent in the first half. The Lady Jeffs had no such problem as Hannah Hackley scored 16 of her game-high 27 points. She also finished with a game-high 10 rebounds.

Marley Giddens added 20 points and seven rebounds for Amherst (15-0, 3-0), ranked third in the USA Today Division III coaches' poll.

“We didn’t have very good spacing, we didn’t have very good defense,” McKinley said. “We had a tough week at practice. A lot of us are sick (with a stomach bug), so we didn’t work on defense as much. … You could really tell out there. Our rotations were late. Our help (defense) was late.”

Mairead Hynes finished with 16 points and eight rebounds for Conn and Liz Malman added 12 points.

“We’ve been a pretty good offensive team this year," Wilson said. “I think we got some decent looks (in the first half). We didn’t make them, then we got into the second half and made a lot of those same shots.”

The Camels went on a 19-7 run in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 56-45.

Amelia King’s layup shrunk the Jumbos’ lead to 58-49 with nine minutes, 39 seconds remaining. But Conn then went scoreless for the next four minutes, something that hasn’t been a problem this season.

“At one point this season, we had five people scoring in double figures,” Wilson said. “That hasn’t been the case for us in years past. We might have one offensive player or two, so the offensive end was really a grind. This year, it’s been really easy.”

The Camels have a chance to win more than 16 games since winning 22 during the 1992-93 season, and they’ve been winning with a young team. They start two freshman (Kyle Caouette and Payton Ouimette), and sophomore Hynes is their leading scorer and second-leading rebounder.

“It did surprise me,” McKinley said of the team’s success. “As a freshman. … we were definitely more freshman than they were. We made mistakes. We weren’t in the gym early. We were sluggish in practice sometimes, and they’re just not. They’re ready to be here, and I think it speaks to the program growing.

“(Wilson) has just really created a great program and people wnt to come here. We battle against the best teams in the country.”

n.griffen@theday.com

Twitter: @MetalNED