Grantham, PA - The Messiah College women's basketball team picked up their first MAC Commonwealth victory over Lycoming College on Wednesday evening and moved to 5-0 on the season. The final score was 83-42 and the Falcons shot 46% from the field, 40.9% from the three-point range, and 100% from the free-throw line.

Maci Thornton had another tremendous showing with a career high of 19 points, three assists, and two steals. Alecia Rohrer and Jen Fairbanks were the other two Falcons who scored double-figures with 10 points each. Gillian Glackin led the Falcons with 10 rebounds, three of them being offensive boards.

The Falcons began the game strong and dominated on both the offensive and defensive ends. In the first quarter, the Falcons went on an 11-0 run within the first five minutes, which forced Lycoming to call an early 30 second time-out. That time-out did not seem to faze the Falcons as they continued to control the pace of the game. Maci Thornton scored 12 of her 19 points in the first quarter, with three successful trips to the foul line. Messiah continued to push the tempo in the second quarter, with back-to-back layups by Rohrer and Hannah Brown, which extended their lead to 24 points (31-7). With 30 seconds remaining in the half, Maci Thornton came down the floor and hit a three-pointer off of Rohrer's delivery. Less than 10 seconds later, Brown connected from the three-point range which gave the Falcons a 30 point advantage, this was their biggest lead of the half.  Messiah went into halftime with a commanding 45-15 lead over Lycoming.

The Warriors came out strong after halftime and picked up a couple of early buckets. They even prevented Messiah's offense from scoring, until the 7:10 minute mark when Kaitlyn Hoff scored a jumper off Rohrer's pass, which sparked the Falcons offense.  Messiah continued to broaden their lead in the third quarter and went into the fourth quarter up 60-24. The largest lead of the game came at the 2:31 minute mark in the fourth quarter, when Leah Springer stole the ball, pushed it up the floor, and dished it to Haley Maraday.  Maraday took it up strong and finished to give the Falcons a 47 point lead over the Warriors. Jen Fairbanks led the Falcons in scoring in the second half with seven points and Becca Isaac, Emily White, and Springer collected all five of their points in the second half.

This is the third game this season that the Falcons have scored 83 points or more. Messiah continued to display how much depth they truly have with 11 different players scoring for the Falcons, their bench also outscored the Warriors' bench 44-23. Messiah's defensive presence was very evident, they out-rebounded Lycoming 44-31 and also had 15 steals, three of which came from Rohrer.

The Falcons will head to Lexington, VA on Dec. 3 for a 12:00 p.m. tip-off against Washington and Lee University.