Daytona Beach, FL – Sophomore Ama Biney (Worcester, MA) registered a career-best 21 points as the WPI women's basketball team closed out the 2015 portion of its schedule Monday morning with a 67-51 win over Alvernia (PA) at Daytona Beach Shootout in Florida.
The Engineers up their record to 10-1, the best start in school history, and push their winning streak to eight, the longest run since a nine-game surge back in 2010-2011 campaign. Avernia sees its mark even out at 5-5.
For the second straight game at the two-day tournament, WPI fell behind in the opening minute, this time 5-0 as the Crusaders got a 3-pointer by Jenna Wolfe (Newark, DE) and a layup from Miranda Hoover (Duncannon, PA) in the first 1:03. WPI swiftly responded by seeing six people dent the scoring column during a 12-0 spurt, highlighted by a pair of baskets from Priscilla Dunphy (Barrington, RI) and capped by a free throw by Haili Welton (Southbury, CT). The Crimson and Gray led 16-13 after the first quarter and took a 33-24 advantage into the locker room at the intermission after Tess Nogueira (Merrimac, MA) beat the halftime buzzer with a layup.
The second half belonged to Biney as the sophomore tallied 14 points en route to eclipsing her previous career-high of 17, achieved three times. Biney drained 6-of-8 field goal attempts in the final 20 minutes, including all four of her third quarter bids. She registered the first seven WPI points of the third quarter as the Crimson and Gray got clutch 3-pointers late in the stanza by Madison Beck (Syracuse, NY) and Brittney Lambert (Hudson, NH) to keep Alvernia at bay.
Biney was the only WPI player in double digits in scoring as Stasha Greenalch (Newington, CT) and Lisa Mendez (Yonkers, NY) both notched nine points apiece. Biney also stuffed the stat sheets with a team-best six rebounds to go along with three assists while Yasmeen Luna (North Providence, RI) led all players with four assists. As a team, WPI held a 32-18 edge in points in the pain and tallied all eight of the game's fast break points.
Wolff paced the Crusaders with 15 points while Stevie Fortna (Lebanon, PA) chipped in with 10.
WPI is off until Saturday, January 2nd, when it travels to Simmons for a 1pm contest. Alvernia is back in action on Wednesday, December 30th, hosting Penn State-Harrisburg at 7pm.