St. Mary's City, MD - The Messiah College women's basketball team defeated Dickinson College on Friday night with an impressive score of 74-44. The Falcons moved to 2-0 on the season and will compete in the Dan Greene Memorial Invitational championship on Saturday against the host team, St. Mary's College of Maryland.
The Falcons shot 45.6% from the field, 40% from the three-point line, and displayed a well-balanced offense with ten different players scoring.
Maci Thornton led the team with 11 points and
Alecia Rohrer and
Gillian Glackin led in rebounds with eight and seven, respectively.
Messiah started the game sloppy with six turnovers and two missed layups. They were down six points early in the first quarter, but after a layup from
Kaitlyn Hoff and back-to-back jumpers by
Kristen Smoluk they tied it up (6-6). Messiah then went on a 16-2 run and finished the quarter 16-8 over the Red Devils.
The Falcons continued to set the pace offensively in the 2nd quarter with a layup by
Leah Springer and a three-pointer from
Becca Isaac. Glackin did a great job on the glass collecting four of her seven rebounds in the second quarter. Messiah finished the half up 20 points (37-17) and looked to extend their lead even more in the 2nd half. Thornton had a solid first half and collected all of her 11 points within the first and second quarters.
Messiah continued to push the tempo in the third quarter and were sent to the line six times; in which they converted 10 points on those free-throw attempts. In the fourth quarter, the Falcons were able to extend their lead to 30 points after Rohrer and Springer hit a pair of layups and
Jocelyn Chavous knocked down two free-throws.
Messiah's bench outscored Dickinson's bench 36-18, 12 of the Falcons' bench points coming in the 2nd quarter. Messiah's defense also created a lot of turnovers and they were able to score 40 of their 74 points off turnovers. As previously mentioned, Thornton led the Falcons' scoring with 11, while Hoff, Isaac, Rohrer and Smoluk each had eight in the win over the Red Devils.
As mentioned above, the Falcons will face St. Mary's in the championship game at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. St. Mary's defeated Delaware Valley on their home court Friday evening, 66-63.