WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The Villanova Wildcats traveled to Winston-Salem on Sunday afternoon where they tallied a 74-65 win over the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. With the victory, the Wildcats improve to 4-1, while Wake Forest falls to 2-4.

Villanova led 12-6 when the Wildcats went on a 9-0 run to take a 21-6 advantage. The Wildcats scored five of the nine points from the free throw line with junior center Christina Dalce going two-for-two from the stripe and adding a driving lay-up.

The 9-0 spurt would propel Villanova to a 23-10 lead after one quarter of play. Villanova finished the quarter making 7-of-15 from the field and 7-of-8 from the line.

Villanova pushed its lead to 29-14 early in the second quarter, before Wake Forst used a 12-4 run to slice the lead to 33-26. The Wildcats responded with back-to-back lay-ups by Abby Jegede and Brynn McCurry to push lead back to 37-26.

Following a back and forth final three minutes of the quarter, Villanova went to intermission with a 41-31 lead.

After two McCurry free throws gave Villanova a 45-35 lead with 6:31 remaining in the third quarter, the Demon Deacons ran off nine unanswered points to make it a 45-44 game with 3:43 on the clock.  Olsen ended Villanova's 3:25 scoreless drought with a driving lay-up to give her team a 47-44 advantage.

Two minutes later, Wildcat junior Kaitlyn Orihel drained back-to-back three-point field goals to give Villanova a 53-47 lead. Demon Deacon guard Kaia Harrison finished the third quarter scoring with a short jumper that sent the teams to the fourth quarter with Villanova leading 53-49.

Wake Forest guard Raegyn Conley drained consecutive three-point field goals to erase Villanova's 61-55 lead and tie the game at 61-61 with 5:01 to play. Following a media timeout, Olsen put Villanova back ahead 63-61 with two free throws. The lead was short lived, however, as Wake Forest tied the game on a lay-up by Harrison.

With the score tied at 65-65 with 1:08 to play, Villanova called a timeout to set-up a sideline out of bounds play. The Wildcats executed the play to perfection and took the lead for good when Olsen connected on a triple from the left wing. Villanova got a defensive stop on the game's next possession and put the game away by going 6-of-6 from the foul line over the final 30 seconds of the game.

In the win, Olsen led the way with 21 points, five assists and four rebounds, while Orihel came off the bench to score 14 points. Dalce and McCurry had 12 points each with Dalce pulling-down a game-high 12 rebounds.

Wake Forest was paced by Malaya Cowles with a game-high 22 points.

For the game, Villanova was 24-of-58 from the field (41.4%), 7-of-19 from three-point range (38.8%) and 19-of-20 from the foul line (95.0%), while the Demon Deacons shot 42.3 percent from the floor (22-of-52), 36.4 percent from downtown (4-of-11) and 89.5 percent from the charity stripe (17-of-19). Villanova owned a 35-29 advantage on the backboards.

The Wildcats return to action on Thursday when the Richmond Spiders visit the Finneran Pavilion. Game time is set for 7 p.m.

NOTES: Today was just the second all-time meeting between the two teams. The other match-up came in the 1988 NCAA Tournament where Wake Forest earned a 53-51 win…Today was the fifth career double-double for Christina Dalce…Lucy Olsen has scored double figures in all five games this season… The Villanova bench scored 28 points in today's win…This was Villanova's fourth straight win.