CHICAGO – The 25^th ranked Villanova Wildcats traveled to Chicago, Illinois on Wednesday night, where they tallied a 71-64 win over the DePaul Blue Demons. With the victory, Villanova improves to 15-3 overall and 6-1 in BIG EAST play, while DePaul falls to 10-7 on the year and 3-3 in league action. 
 
The first quarter went back and forth with neither team able to open-up more than a four point advantage. Wildcat junior guard Maddie Burke led Villanova in the game's first 10 minutes with eight points. DePaul was led by Aneesah Morrow and Jorie Allen with eight points each.
 
Villanova started the second quarter by out scoring the Blue Demons, 11-5, to grab a 31-23 lead. Senior forward Maddy Siegrist and junior guard Bella Runyan led the spurt with Siegrist scoring six of the 11 and Runyan tallying the other five points.
 
DePaul fished the opening half strong, scoring eight of the final 12 points of the second quarter to send the teams to intermission with Villanova holding a 35-31 lead.
 
Siegrist led Villanova in the first half with 12 points, while Morrow registered 14 points.
 
Villanova came out after halftime and scored the first eight points to up its lead to 43-31. Back-to-back three balls by Brooke Mullin and Burke highlighted the stretch. Leading 51-36, the Wildcats tallied seven of the next 11 points to take their biggest lead of the game at 58-40 with 2:32 left in the third stanza.
 
DePaul responded by finishing the quarter on an 8-0 run to cut the Villanova advantage to 58-48 after three.   
 
After sophomore center Christina Dalce scored on a lay-up to put the Wildcats up 65-54 with 3:15 to play in regulation, the Blue Demons scored six straight points to slice the Villanova advantage to 65-60 with 2:18 on the clock. Each team failed to score on its next possession, before Siegrist was fouled with 1:06 remaining. Siegrist sank both free throws and Villanova led 67-60 at the 1:06 mark. DePaul came right back and made it a 67-62 game on a 15-foot jumper by Morrow.
 
On its next possession, Villanova ran the shot clock down and got the ball to Siegrist late in the shot clock. Siegrist made a move in the paint and buried a contested jump shot over two Blue Demon defenders. The Siegrist bucket gave the Wildcats a 69-62 advantage with 26 seconds remaining.     
 
Siegrist led the way in the win with 32 points and 12 rebounds, while Dalce had a career-high tying 13 points and seven boards. Burke finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
 
DePaul was paced by Morrow with 28 points and 11 rebounds. Jorie Allen finished with 15 points for the Blue Demons.
 
For the game, Villanova was 25-of-60 from the field (41.7%), 6-of-19 from three-point range (31.6%) and 15-of-17 from the foul line (88.2%), while DePaul shot 35.4 percent from the floor (23-of-65), 14.3 percent from behind the arc (2-of-14) and 88.9 percent from the charity stripe (16-of-18). Villanova owned a 40-39 advantage on the backboards.       
 
Villanova returns to action on Saturday, Jan. 14, when the St. John's Red Storm will visit the Finneran Pavilion. Game time is set for 2 p.m.
 
NOTES: Villanova improves to 8-0 in road games this year…The Wildcats are now 2-5 all-time at Wintrust Arena…Maddy Siegrist has scored 197 points in seven career games against DePaul for a 28.1 points per game average…Siegrist now has 1,311 career points in Big East regular season games which is now tied for third on the BIG EAST all-time list…Siegrist has had a double-double in three straight games…Tonight was the eighth 30-point game of the year and 25^th of her career for Siegrist.