The St. Thomas Aquinas College women's basketball team pulled away late for a 69-51 victory over Felician University at the Dominican Tournament. Jenna Erickson posted a game-high 20 points as the Lady Spartans improved to 4-0, while dropping Feliican to 0-3.

Through a scheduling quirk, non-conference opponents STAC and Felician were meeting for the second time in a week, with the Lady Spartans taking a 78-61 win at Aquinas Hall last Saturday. After averaging nearly 82 points per game over their first three contests, however, St. Thomas Aquinas struggled to find the scoring touch early.

A tightly played first quarter ended with an Erickson three-pointer to extend her team's lead to 14-8 after one. Adiya Henderson hit a basket and added two free throws to put STAC ahead 22-13 midway through the second, but Shyla Osmond hit a pair of three-pointers in the waning minutes to trim the gap to just 26-25 at halftime.

With a much tighter tilt on hand than their meeting a week ago, STAC's stellar defense held sway until the offense arrived, pouring in 43 second-half points, including a 24-14 fourth quater surge to put the contest out of reach.

Osmond kept her team alive with eight straight Golden Falcon points, including a trey that made the score 39-37 with 1:46 left in the third. That would serve as a Lady Spartan wake-up call, as Erickson answered with her own bucket from downtown, capping a 6-0 run to end the stanza at 45-37.

That momentum would carry into the fourth quarter as an Alex Bertolino lay-up with 5:50 to play was the cherry on top of a 10-2 run starting the frame, and the comfortable 55-39 lead was more than enough as the chasm would grow to as many as 26 points in the final minutes of play.

Bertolino added 15 for the Lady Spartans, who held Felician to just 29% shooting from the field (16-55) while dominating the boards to the tune of a 49-25 margin, led by Kate McCue's game-high nine. Eliana Scanlon also chipped in for Felician with 10 points.

The Lady Spartans return to action tomorrow, Sunday, November 22, taking on host Dominican in the tournament finale, with tip time set for 1:00 pm. They will then be off until Wednesday, December 7, when they open the East Coast Conference schedule at New York Institute of Technology in a 7:00 pm start.

- Steve Balsan, St. Thomas Aquinas College Sports Information

- Photo by Dorice Arden