NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The Bridgewater State women's basketball team used an explosive second half to run past the MCLA Trailblazers 73-52 this afternoon in MASCAC action.
With the win, the Bears improve to 11-9 overall and sit alone atop the league standings at 5-2. MCLA drops their eighth straight game and sits at 4-15 overall, 0-7 in conference play.
Jenna Williamson led all scorers with 19 points, including 16 over the final twenty minutes. Elisha Homich added 15 points, while Chanelle Melton (14 points) and Melissa Daigle (ten points) were also in double figures.
Williamson increased her career scoring total to 1,235 points as she moved past Stephanie Hurley (1,221 points) into third place on the Bears' all-time scoring lost. Laurie Berryman (1992-1996) is the program's all-time leading scorer with 1,265 points. With her 15 points, Homich now has 977 points in her career.
MCLA was led by Kaitlyn Chenevert's team best 14 points. Kayla Hotaling ended the night a rebound shy of a double-double with ten points and nine rebounds.
Bridgewater trailed by two points at halftime and with 12:36 remaining MCLA led 38-37. From there the Bears held the Trailblazers without a field goal for nine minutes. The drought allowed BSU to go on a 28-3 run which gave the visitors a commanding 65-41 lead with just 3:50 left to play. Williamson keyed the spurt with 10 points.
The Bears were hot from beyond the arc during the decisive run knocking down four three pointers. BSU shot a solid 54% from the floor in the closing half. As the Bears were heating up, MCLA couldn't find an answer.
The Trailblazers went 0-11 during that spurt and committed seven turnovers.
The opening half saw MCLA jump out to a quick 9-2 advantage before the Bears used an 11-2 spurt to grab their first lead of the day at 13-11.
The Trailblazers responded in a hurry scoring the next six points to jump back in front at 17-13. The rest of the half saw neither team lead by more than four points, and with 1:48 until halftime the Bears led 25-21.
MCLA's Mariah Brown would then score her team's final seven points of the half to give the Trailblazers a 28-26 lead heading into the locker room.
Williamson canned three triples on the afternoon and dished out three assists. Homich had a solid floor game adding six rebounds and four assists. Melton came up just shy of a double-double notching nine rebounds in the win.
MCLA committed 27 turnovers in the loss.
Both teams are back in action on Tuesday evening at 5:30. The Trailblazers host Worcester State while the Bears travel to Westfield State to take on the Owls.