VILLANOVA, PA. – In BIG EAST women's basketball action on Tuesday evening at the Finneran Pavilion, the No. 22 Villanova Wildcats tallied a convincing 76-38 win over the visiting Xavier Musketeers. With the victory, Villanova is now 17-3 overall and 8-1 in conference action, while Xavier falls to 7-12 overall and 0-10 in league play.
Leading 14-8 midway through the first quarter, Villanova used a 13-5 spurt to close the quarter and lead 27-13 after one. The Wildcats were 7-of-13 from the field and 11-of-11 from the foul line in the game's first 10 minutes.
Xavier was strong from long distance in the first quarter going 3-of-3 from downtown.
Villanova turned up the defense in the second quarter holding the Musketeers to just three points on 1-of-12 shooting. The Wildcats finished the half on an 8-1 run to lead 39-16 at halftime. Freshman Megan Olbrys sparked the Villanova spurt by scoring six straight points to end the half. The six points included two lay-ups and two free throws.
Senior forward Maddy Siegrist led the Wildcats in the opening half with 13 points, while sophomore guard Lucy Olsen added 10 points.
Xavier would not get within 21 and Villanova would lead by as many as 40 in the second half.
In the victory, Siegrist scored a game-high 27 points to go with a game-best 10 rebounds. She was 10-of-18 from the field, 2-of-4 from three-point range and 5-fo-6 from the foul line. Olsen finished with 19 points, five rebounds and four assists.
Xavier was paced by Fernanda Ovalle who had 12 points.
For the game, Villanova was 28-of-51 from the field (54.9%), 5-of-15 from three-point range (33.3%) and 15-of-18 from the foul line (83.3%), while the Musketeers shot 28.6 percent from the floor (14-of-49 from the floor ), 40.0 percent from behind the arc (4-of-10) and 66.7 percent from the charity stripe (6-of-9). The Wildcats owned a 35-24 advantage on the backboards.
The Wildcats return to action on Friday, Jan. 20, with a road game at Creighton. Game time is set for 9 p.m., eastern time. The game can be seen live on FS1.
NOTES: Villanova has defeated Xavier 14 straight times and lead the series by a 19-1 count….The Wildcats are 7-1 at home and have won 18 of the last 19 games at the Finneran Pavilion…Maddy Siegrist moved past Lisa Ortlip and into second place on Villanova's all-time rebounding list with 955 career caroms…Tonight was the 11th double-double of the year and 48th of her career for Maddy Siegrist…Maddy Siegrist has scored 20 more points in all 20 games this season.
