VILLANOVA, PA. – In women's basketball action at the Finneran Pavilion on Wednesday afternoon, the Villanova Wildcats tallied a convincing 81-55 win over the La Salle Explorers. With the victory, Villanova improves to 10-3 overall and 4-0 in Big 5 play, while La Salle falls to 8-6 on the year and 0-3 in City Series action.
With the 4-0 mark, the Wildcats win the 2022-23 Philadelphia Big 5 title. Villanova now has 19 Big 5 championships to its credit.
Villanova led 9-8 midway through the first quarter, when the Wildcats closed the period on an 11-3 run to lead 20-11 after one. Sophomore guard Lucy Olsen led the spurt by scoring six of the 11 points.
The Wildcat offense was outstanding in the second quarter connecting on 7-of-11 from the field and 2-of-3 from three-point range. Senior forward Maddy Siegrist led the second quarter offensive effort with eight points. The Wildcat defense held La Salle to just a 4-of-13 effort from the field in the second period and Villanova went to intermission with a 38-22 lead.
Leading 62-31 after three quarters of play, Villanova scored seven of the first nine points of the fourth quarter to open-up a commanding 69-41 advantage at the 7:40 mark. The seven Wildcat points included two baskets inside the paint for Siegrist and a three-ball by sophomore Kaitlyn Orihel.
Following the early fourth quarter spurt, La Salle would not get within 23 the rest of the game and Villanova would cruise to the win.
In the victory, Siegrist scored a game-high 31 points and pulled-down a game-best 11 rebounds. She was 11-of-20 from the field and 9-of-9 from the foul line. Olsen stuffed the stat sheet with 19 points, eight assists and six rebounds, while Orihel had a career-high 18 points, including a 4-of-5 effort from three-point range.
La Salle was paced by Kayla Spruill with 14 points and Gabby Crawford who had 13 points.
For the game, Villanova was 30-of-58 from the field (51.7%), 8-of-16 from three-point range (50.0%) and a perfect 13-of-13 from the foul line, while La Salle shot 32.8 percent from the floor (20-of-61), 33.3 percent from behind the arc (6-of-18) and 64.3 percent from the charity stripe (9-of-14). Villanova owned a 39-31 advantage on the backboards.
The Wildcats are now off for seven days and will return to action on Wednesday, Dec. 28, with a road game at Marquette.
NOTES: Villanova has won 14 straight over La Salle and leads the all-time series by a 43-9 count…The Wildcats improve to 129-41 all-time in Philadelphia Big 5 play…Today was the final non conference game of the year for Villanova…Villanova improves to 3-1 in home games…Maddy Siegrist now has 22 career 30-point games and 43 career double-doubles…Maddy Siegrist has scored 127 points in four career games versus La Salle (31.7 ppg.)…La Salle never led in the game.
