The St. Thomas Aquinas College women's basketball team earned a 45-37 victory in an East Coast Conference contest at Molloy College. The Spartans have now won three straight and four of five - all in ECC play - to improve to 4-4 overall and 4-1 in conference action, while Molloy dropped to 2-2, 2-2.
Points were at a premium from the outset at STAC's Victoria Kurisko's hoop broke a scoreless deadlock after 2:19 of action. Safiyyah Lee quickly tied the score for Molloy and again both offenses stalled until Gabriellla Aspuru's three-pointer with 3:52 left gave the Lions a 5-2 lead, which evaporated on a Lexi Huertas three. Huertas and Kaitlyn Watrobski added treys before the end of the session as a 9-0 run staked the Spartans to an 11-5 lead after 10 minutes.
Molloy chipped away to trim the lead to 14-12 midway through the second, but even though the Spartans' only field goal of the quarter came from Katie Bischoping in the first 10 seconds, STAC outscored the Lions by a 6-2 margin over the final four minutes to snag a 20-14 halftime margin. Nearly two minutes elapsed in the third when Katie Marquardt's three brought Molloy to within three points, and a Lee layup put the Lions on top at 29-27 with under 2:00 remaining.
Watrobski added another from downtown and Julia Reggio scored in the final minute as the visitors reclaimed the lead at 32-29 through three quarters. STAC's tenacious defense held Molloy to just one point over the first 6:43 of the final session and Melissa Alifano's tally opened a 39-30 advantage, with Molloy not pulling closer than six points the rest of the way. Watrobski and Lee led their respective teams by tying with a game-high 10 points, with Lee adding 11 rebounds.
STAC has now won both meetings against Molloy this season, with the finale slated for Sunday, February 21, at 12:00 noon. The Spartans will then finish their regular-season slate with four games in five days, traveling to Mercy on Wednesday and Thursday before heading north to take on Daemen on Saturday and Sunday, February 27 and 28.