VILLANOVA, PA. – On Sunday afternoon at the Finneran Pavilion, the Villanova Wildcats ran their win streak to five in a row with a 68-58 victory over the visiting Butler Bulldogs. With the win, the Wildcats improve to 14-3 overall and 5-1 in BIG EAST play, while Butler falls to 6-10 on the year and 1-6 in league play.
Senior forward Maddy Siegrist scored the first six points of the game to help the Wildcats race to an early 6-0 advantage. Siegrist would score 10 of her team's 15 first quarter points as Villanova led 15-7 after one.
Butler's Kendall Wingler made two free throws to cut the Wildcat lead to 28-21, before Villanova scored six of the last eight points of the half to lead 34-23 at intermission. The six Wildcat points included two buckets by Siegrist and a 15-foot jumper by junior guard Maddie Burke.
Siegrist was outstanding in the opening half with 18 points on 9-of-13 shooting. She also added seven first half rebounds.
The Wildcats led 44-33 midway through the third quarter, when Butler went on an 8-2 run to cut the Villanova advantage to 46-41 with 2:37 to play in the third stanza. After a Siegrist three increased Villanova's lead to 49-41, Wingler made two foul shots and the Wildcats led 49-43. On Villanova's next possession, Burke drained a three from the corner to give the Wildcats a 52-43 lead.
Following a three-ball by Butler's Rachel McLimore, Wildcat guard Lucy Olsen beat the third quarter buzzer with a lay-up that gave Villanova a 54-46 lead after three.
Villanova opened the fourth quarter by scoring seven of the first nine points to take a 61-48 lead at the 7:54 mark. Siegrist was dominant in the stretch scoring all seven points on a three-ball and four foul shots. Following the opening spurt, the Bulldogs would not get within 10 the rest of the way.
In the victory, Siegrist led the way with 36 points and 13 rebounds. She was 15-of-24 from the field, 2-of-4 from three and 4-of-5 from the foul line. Burke was the second Wildcat in double figures with 13 points, including three field goals from behind the arc. Bella Runyan and Christina Dalce had seven points each.
Butler was paced by Wingler with 16 points and Trinity White who had 10 points.
For the game, Villanova was 28-of-64 from the field (43.8%), 6-of-22 from three-point range (27.3%) and 6-of-10 from the foul line (60.0%), while Butler shot 44.2 percent from the floor
(19-of-43), 46.7 percent from long distance (7-of-15) and 76.5 percent from the charity stripe (13-of-17). Villanova committed just seven turnovers.
Villanova returns to action on Wednesday, Jan. 11, with a road game at DePaul. Tip-off at Wintrust Arena is set for 8 p.m., eastern time.
NOTES: Villanova is 5-1 at home this year and have won 16 of its last 17 games at the Finneran Pavilion…Maddy Siegrist now has nine double-doubles this year and seven 30-point games…Siegrist moved past Pitt's Lorari Johnson and into sixth place on the Big East Conference career scoring leaders list for regular season conference games with 1,269 points…Siegrist now has 2,300 career points.
