VILLANOVA, PA. – In women's basketball action on Saturday afternoon at the Finneran Pavilion, the Villanova Wildcats tallied a 69-56 win over the DePaul Blue Demons. With the victory, Villanova improves to 17-5 overall and 10-3 in BIG EAST play, while DePaul falls to 5-19 on the season and 3-11 in league action.

With the score tied 10-10 with 4:05 to play in the first quarter, the Wildcats out-scored DePaul 10-5 the remainder of the period to take a 20-15 lead after 10 minutes of play. Senior forward Ryanne Allen and sophomore guard Jasmine Bascoe had five points each in the spurt.

DePaul got a three-ball from Alzhanique Mayo to close out the quarter and cut the Villanova lead to 20-15.

Villanova scored 11 of the first 13 points of the third quarter to open-up a 31-17 advantage. Freshman Brooke Bender drained a three and had an offensive rebound put back, while Bascoe had two driving lay-ups in the stretch.

After going 6:24 without scoring, the Blue Demons scored the final four points of the quarter to send the game to halftime with Villanova leading 33-20. DePaul finished the second half with just five points on 2-of-10 shooting.

Bascoe led the way for the Wildcats in the first half with 16 points.

Leading 47-31 midway through the third quarter, the Wildcats went on a 9-2 run to take a 47-31 lead. DePaul then responded with seven straight points to slice the Villanova advantage to 47-38 with under a minute to play in the third period.

Villanova finished the third quarter scoring with a lay-up by Kylee Watson that gave the Wildcats a 49-38 lead after three.

A conventional three-point play by DePaul's Kate Novik cut the Villanova lead to 58-52 with 4:27 to play. After each team failed to score on its next possession, the Wildcats got two free throws and a lay-up by Bascoe to push the lead to 62-52 at the 2:19 mark.

DePaul got the game back to single digits on a lay-up by Michele Ojo, before Villanova put the game away when Ryanne Allen drained a three-ball from the right wing.

In the victory, Bascoe led the way with a game-high 27 points. Allen finished with 17 points and seven rebounds. DePaul was paced by Devin Hagemann with 14 points and Natiah Nelson who had 10 points.

For the game, Villanova was 27-of-57 from the field (47.4%), 6-of-14 from three-point range (42.9%) and 9-of-12 from the foul line (75.0%), while DePaul shot 35.5 percent from the floor (22-of-62), 25.0 percent from behind the arc (6-of-24) and 60.0 percent from the charity stripe (6-of-10).

Villanova returns to action on Wednesday, Feb. 4 with a game at Butler.