KINGS POINT, NY—The University of Scranton women's basketball team kept its hopes to host a home game in the upcoming Landmark Conference tournament alive with a 76-48 victory over the Merchant Marine Academy Friday evening at O'Hara Hall.

Senior guard Sidney Jaques (Rosemont, NJ/Hunterdon Central) and sophomore guard Alison Sweeney (Wall, NJ/Saint Rose) led the Lady Royals, now 14-9 overall and tied for second with Catholic University in the Landmark Conference standings with a 9-3 mark.  Scranton also received 12 points and eight rebounds from junior forward Erin Boggan (Danbury, Conn./Danbury) and 11 points from freshman forward Meredith Mesaris (Fairfax, Va./Fairfax).

Freshman guard Demi VanderWal (Springfield, Ill) led the Mariners, now 9-13 overall and 4-8 in the conference, with 18 points and junior guard Roshenda Josephs (Culpeper, Va.) finished with 12.

The Lady Royals put the hammer down from the opening tip, as Sweeney scored all 13 of her points in the first half as Scranton bolted out to a 40-17 lead by intermission and never looked back.  

Scranton caught a break when 11th-ranked and conference-leader Juniata College fought back from an 11-point halftime deficit to defeat Catholic, 55-52, at home.  With two games remaining and if the Lady Royals and Cardinals are still tied, the deciding factor as to who wins the tiebreaker and who host the other in the semifinals of the conference tournament could come down to D3hoops.com's strength of schedule ranking.

Catholic's road down the stretch, however, is a tad easier.   The Cardinals end the year at Susquehanna and at Goucher, both of whom have only won a combined three league games, while Scranton takes on vastly-improving Drew University tomorrow and ends its season next Saturday, February 18, against Moravian College, which is the number four seed regardless of how it fares in its last two games.

The semifinals of the Landmark Conference will begin Wednesday, February 22, with Moravian taking on Juniata in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, while Scranton and Catholic will wait to see who host the other.  The winners advance to the championship game on Saturday, February 25, at the site of the highest seed remaining, with the eventual winner receiving an automatic bid to the 2012 NCAA Division III tournament.