The St. Thomas Aquinas College women's basketball team utilized stifling defense to overcome a 10-point deficit and cruise to a 60-44 win at University of the District of Columbia. Sara Oliviera led the charge on offense with a game-high 20 points as the Lady Spartans took their third straight to improve to 7-7 overall and 3-1 in East Coast Conference play. UDC has now dropped three straight and stands at 6-8, 1-3.

Playing without the services of leading scorer Shpresa Liharevic due to injury, the trip to our nation's capital got off to an inauspicious start for the visitors. Taj Baldwin-Kollore ran off four straight points, capping a 10-2 run to stake the Firebirds to a 21-11 advantage with just over eight minutes to play in the half. The Lady Spartans would take over from there.

Oliviera nailed the first of her six three pointers to get the ball rolling and added another to close out a 12-2 run, deadlocking the score at 23-23 with 2:50 to play in the first half. A Tatyana Crawford bucket "and-one" in the final minute gave STAC a 29-27 halftime edge and they would not look back.

After the break, Oliviera would pick up where she left off, burying three treys in a 22-7 outburst that put the Lady Spartans firmly in control with a 51-34 cushion and the hosts would draw no closer than 11 points the rest of the way. In all, St. Thomas Aquinas outscored UDC by a 49-23 margin over the final 28 minutes of play

With a short bench, everyone available made valuable contributions, including Ashley Motrechuk's 12 points and 10 rebounds, Crawford's career-high eight points, and Bianca Kowgios' eight points and six assists.

The Lady Spartans return to action on Saturday, January 12, when they continue their ECC slate with a trip to Mercy College in a 1:00 pm tipoff. They return to Aquinas Hall to host NYIT on Wednesday, January 16, with game time set for 5:30 pm.