The St. Thomas Aquinas College women's basketball team dropped a 79-70 setback in an East Coast Conference affair at Mercy College. STAC now slips to 4-6 overall and 4-2 in conference play, with Mercy snapping its winless skid to improve to 1-5, 1-5.

After experience offensive struggles against Molloy in a weekend split, STAC endured an early drought that would prove to be the difference in the game, as by the time Katie Bischoping got the visitors on the board with 6:20 left in the first quarter, the Mavericks had already built a 10-0 cushion thanks to a pair of Kellie Nudd three-pointers.

That lead expanded to 24-11 after 10 minutes and while STAC's output improved in the second quarter, they were unable to draw closer than eight points until another Nudd three with 8:18 left in the third expanded the gap to 47-30. The Spartans showed signs of life from there with Lexi Huertas converting from downtown to touch off an 11-4 run to close to 51-41, but Mercy reeled off the next six points to stall any hopes of a comeback.

Huertas was on fire with a career high 25 points and Victoria Kurisko added 10, but it was not enough to overcome Nudd's 24 point, 12 rebound effort to pace Mercy.

Wednesday's is the first of four road contests in five days to end the regular season for the Spartans, who play at Mercy in a rematch tomorrow (Thursday) evening before heading upstate to play Daemen in a weekend set. ECC playoffs begin the week of March 1 - stay tuned to stacathletics.com for more information as it becomes available.