Glenside, PA - The Messiah women's basketball team remained undefeated with a 67-48 victory over Arcadia University on the road Wednesday evening. This win puts the Falcons 8-0 on the season, which is their best start to a season since the 2012-13 campaign.
The Falcons shot 29 of 55 (52.7%) from the field and
Jen Fairbanks led in scoring with 15 points and collected 5 rebounds, this is the second game this season Fairbanks has scored 15 points.
Gillian Glackin collected her third double-double on the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds and
Kaitlyn Hoff also contributed 12 points and four assists.
Maci Thornton was the other Falcon to score double figures with 10 points and delivered five assists.
Early in the first quarter, Messiah and Arcadia traded baskets back and forth, however midway through the quarter
Kaitlyn Hoff sparked the Falcons offense which allowed them to go on a 10-0 run. Hoff knocked down a three-pointer and then the very next possession she finished a fast break layup off of
Maci Thornton's steal.
Hannah Brown checked into the game and immediately scored a triple to complete the 10-0 run for the Falcons. Messiah outscored the Knights 21-10 in the first quarter and collected 13 total rebounds. In contrast to the first 10 minutes of action, the Knights started to take control of the tempo and began to chip away at Messiah's lead. Messiah also struggled to take care of the ball and turned it over five times in the second quarter. Early in the quarter, the Knights went on 9-0 run and cut the Falcons lead down to five points. Susan Blosser, led the Knights in scoring, and collected all of her 12 first-half points in the second quarter. The Knights outscored the Falcons 20-13 and went into halftime trailing by four points (34-30).
Similar to Messiah's Monday night game against Lancaster Bible College, Messiah came out of halftime ready to regain the momentum and that they did.
Jen Fairbanks led the offense for Messiah in the second half when she went 5-5 (100%) from the field and 1-1 (100%) from three-point range; Fairbanks collected 13 of her 15 points in the second half. At the beginning of the third, Fairbanks scored three baskets in a row for Messiah to start building their lead offensively. Messiah went on an 11-0 run against Arcadia and held them to scoring a mere eight points in the third quarter. Messiah would go on to win the game 67-48.
The Falcons held a noteworthy advantage on the glass, outrebounding the Knights 36-24 in the contest. As mentioned above,
Gillian Glackin led Messiah in rebounding with 10,
Hannah Brown had six, and
Jen Fairbanks had five boards. Glackin also finished with four blocks; this is the fourth game this season she has collected three or more blocks in a contest.
As mentioned earlier, Messiah moves to 8-0 overall and 2-0 in the conference. The Falcons will return to Brubaker Auditorium on Saturday in a matchup with Alvernia University at 3:00 p.m.