DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—The holidays just got a little bit brighter for The University of Scranton women's basketball team Saturday afternoon.

The Lady Royals downed Gettysburg College, 74-57, to extend their season-long winning streak to five and improve to 7-2 on the season.  In the process, veteran head coach Mike Strong is now only four wins away from becoming the first coach in NCAA Division III women's basketball history to win 800 games.

Junior guard Lindsay Fluehr (Bensalem, Pa./Nazareth Academy) led a balanced scoring attack for Scranton with a career-high 16 points and junior forward Meredith Mesaris (Fairfax, Va./Fairfax) and junior guard Lia DiSciascio (Broomall, Pa./Cardinal O'Hara) finished with 13 apiece.  The Lady Royals also received 10 points from senior guard Alison Sweeney (Wall, NJ/Saint Rose) and nine points and 11 rebounds from freshman forward Sarah Payonk (Schwenksville, Pa./Spring-Ford).

Gettysburg, which fell to 6-3 on the season, was led by sophomore forward Jessica Porter (Narberth, Pa./Lower Merion) with 11 points and senior guards Rianna Doane (West Chester, Pa./Bayard Rustin) and Alyssa Isler (New Hope, Pa./New Hope-Solebury) chipped in nine points apiece.

After taking a 34-31 lead at intermission, the Lady Royals took control by opening the second half with a 15-4 run that included seven points by Sweeney to build up a 14-point cushion with 13:53 remaining.  The Bullets, who shot 8 of 37 from the field (21.6 percent) in the second half, never cut the lead under 10 points the rest of the way.

The Lady Royals, on the other hand, shot 50 percent from the field in the second half.  For the game, they connected on 8 of 18 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc (44.4 percent) and made a season-high 28 (of 37) free throw attempts.

Scranton has found its shooting touch after making just 16 percent of its 3-point field goal attempts in its first four games.  Since then, the Lady Royals have made over 40 percent of their attempts from behind the arc (39 of 97).   They've also taken advantage of the charity stripe, shooting over 70 percent from the free throw line in three straight and in seven of nine games.

Fluehr capped off an outstanding all-round game with eight assists and seven rebounds and DiSciascio has now scored in double-figures in each of her last three games for Scranton, which will break for the holidays before taking on William Paterson University in the Hat City Classic at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut, on Friday, January 3, beginning at 5:00 p.m.