VILLANOVA, PA. – In women's basketball action on Sunday afternoon, the Villanova Wildcats won for the seventh time in a row with a 76-57 win over the visiting Georgetown Hoyas. With the victory, Villanova improves to 15-6 overall and 9-3 in BIG EAST play, while the Hoyas fall to 7-12 overall and 2-9 in league play.
Villanova was dominant in the first quarter, racing to a 20-2 lead just 5:15 in the game. Junior forward Maddy Siegrist and sophomore forward Lior Garzon led the early charge with the duo combining for 18 of the 20 points. Garzon scored 11 in the early spurt, including three field goals from behind the arc, while Siegrist netted seven.
The Wildcats used the dominant start to take a 30-9 lead after the first quarter of play. In the opening 10 minutes, Villanova was 13-of-23 from the field and 4-of-10 from three. Siegrist finished the first stanza by connecting on 7-of-10 from the field for 15 points.
Villanova controlled play throughout the second quarter to lead 39-25 at intermission.
Freshman guard Kaitlyn Orihel scored the first points of the fourth quarter to give Villanova a 61-47 advantage. After the Orihel basket, the Wildcats went scoreless for 3:21 which allowed the Hoyas to claw their way back in the game. During the Villanova scoring drought, Georgetown scored five straight points on a three by Jillian Archer and a 15-foot jumper by Milan Bolden-Morris to make it a 61-52 game at the 6:46 mark.
With momentum on the Georgetown side, Villanova regained control of the game by scoring nine straight points to open-up a 70-52 lead with 2:50 on the clock. Siegrist started the run with a conventional three-point play, before freshman guard Lucy Olsen drained an off balance 10-foot jumper. Grad student Brianna Herlihy added a jump shot and lay-up in the spurt.
Siegrist led the way in the win with 32 points and 14 rebounds. She was 12-of-18 from the field, 1-of-5 from three and 7-of-8 from the foul line. Garzon finished with 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting (3-of-7 from three). Herlihy made her mark all over the stat sheet with four points, 14 rebounds, eight assists and three steals.
Georgetown was paced by Bolden-Morris with 14 points and Archer who had 11.
For the game, Villanova was 28-of-65 from the field (43.1%), 6-of-24 from three (25.0%) and 14-of-17 from the foul line (82.4%), while the Hoyas shot 41.5 percent from the floor (22-of-53), 42.1 percent from three (8-of-19) and 55.6 percent from the charity stripe (5-of-9). Villanova owned a 46-27 advantage on the backboards.
Villanova returns to action on Tuesday, Feb. 9, with a trip to Hartford to take on the Connecticut Huskies. Tip-off at the XL Center is set for 7 p.m.
NOTES: Villanova has now won five straight over Georgetown at home and leads the all-time series by a 46-24 count…Today was Villanova's 12th win in the last 13 games…The Wildcats have scored 240 points in the last three games for an average of 80.0 during the three-game stretch…Maddy Siegrist now has 14 career games of 30 points or more, including six this year… Siegrist has reached the 30-point mark in three consecutive games...Siegrist became the ninth player in program history to reach the 1,500 point mark in today's victory…Siegrist moved past Adrianna Hahn and into eighth place on Villanova's all-time scoring list with 1,516 career points
