VILLANOVA, Pa. – In Big 5 women's basketball action on Wednesday evening at the Finneran Pavilion, the Villanova Wildcats led wire to wire and tallied an 80-64 win. With the victory, Villanova improves to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in Philadelphia Big 5 play, while Penn falls to 3-2 and 0-2 in City Series action.

The Wildcats dominated the opening period racing to a 22-12 lead after the game's first 10 minutes. Villanova was 10-of-20 from the field in the first quarter, while Penn was just 3-of-14.

Junior forward Denae Carter led the early Wildcat charge with eight points, while grad student Maddie Burke added five points.

Villanova started the second quarter on a 9-2 run to open-up a 31-14 advantage. Four different Wildcats scored in the spurt highlighted by a three-ball from Bronagh Power-Cassidy.

The story of the first half for the Wildcats was the play of Burke who scored 14 points in the opening 20 minutes on 5-of-8 shooting, including a 4-of-5 effort from behind the arc. Carter and sophomore guard Maddie Webber added eight first half points for Villanova.

The Villanova defense held Penn to 6-of-30 shooting from the field, including an 0-for-12 effort from three-point range en route to a 44-22 halftime lead.

Villanova would lead by as many as 29 in the second half and cruise to the win.

In the victory, Carter and freshman point guard Jasmine Bascoe led the Wildcats with 16 points, while Burke tallied 14 points and Webber finished with 12 points. Carter led the team on the backboards with nine rebounds. Bascoe also added six rebounds and five assists.

Penn was paced by Stina Almqvist who had a game-high 24 points to go with eight rebounds.

For the game, Villanova was 30-of-70 from the field (42.9%), 9-of-26 from three (34.6%) and 11-of-15 from the foul line (73.8%), while Penn shot 36.7 percent from the floor (22-of-60), 16.7 percent from long distance (4-of-24) and 80.0 percent from charity stripe (16-of-20).

Villanova will travel to the Bahamas this weekend to participate in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament. The Wildcats open-up play in the tournament on Saturday versus Texas A&M.

NOTES: Villanova has won 20 of the last 21 over Penn and leads the all-time series by a 48-3 count…The Wildcats are now 133-42 all-time in Big 5 games…Jasmine Bascoe has scored double figures in the first four games of her collegiate career…Villanova has won 40 of its last 46 homes games…The Wildcats improve to 72-14 all-time against Ivy League competition…Maddie Burke 9-of-11 from three in the first half of the last two games.