BRUNSWICK, Maine – Senior Heather LeBlanc (Sanford, Maine) of the Norwich University women's basketball team became the 17th student-athlete in program history to reach 1,000 career points, doing so in her home state of Maine in Friday's convincing 55-39 victory against Bates College. 

Competing in the inaugural game of the Marsha Graef Memorial Classic, Norwich evens its overall record at 1-1 after the victory while Bates dropped its first game of the season. The contest was played on the campus of Bowdoin College whereas tomorrow's tilt versus the Polar Bears will be played at Bates. 

LeBlanc was 9-for-16 from the floor while making all four free throws, scoring 23 points in the tilt. She entered the game with 993 career points and scored her 1,000th career point on a free throw with 1:26 to go in the stanza. To date, she has scored 1,016 points in 83 games, shooting .524 from the floor (402-for-767). 

Junior Shyann Josler (Thetford Center, Vt.) ranked second on the team with 12 points, posting team-leading figures in assists (five) and rebounds (four). Junior Arianna Harrison (Vernon, Vt.) narrowly missed a double-double, scoring nine points alongside eight rebounds, while sophomore Vanessa Fleury (Lebanon, N.H.) cashed in with eight points and five boards. 

Down by a 4-3 margin, LeBlanc posted a layup and a three-point basket within 25 seconds to grant her team an 8-4 lead. Josler later added her second three-pointer of the quarter, creating an 11-6 advantage. 

Norwich assumed control of the game in the second quarter, using a 9-0 scoring run to create a 22-8 lead with 5:45 to go in the first half. The Bobcats would find themselves overwhelmed by the Cadets defense, scoring only three points in the quarter and only 11 total points in the first half of play – Bates finished with only five made field goals (5-for-33, 15.2%) while missing on all 13 three-point attempts. 

Bates would outscore Norwich by a 15-12 margin in the third quarter, but the Cadets would grow its lead to 24 in the fourth quarter by opening a 24-point lead with exactly three minutes to go in the game. 

Norwich scored 26 of the game's 38 points in the paint, but Bates scored 12 of its third quarter points off of second chance opportunities. The Cadets bench chipped in with 12 points in the contest while Bates reserves accounted for only three points. 

Allie Coppola led Bates with 12 points and 10 rebounds. 

The Cadets will travel to Bates College, taking on Bowdoin in a 2 p.m. showdown on Saturday, Nov. 19 to conclude the Graef Memorial Classic. 

NOTES: The tournament, jointly hosted by Bates and Bowdoin, is named for Marsha Graef, a Professor Emerita of Physical Education, coach and administrator in the Bates College Department of Athletics for nearly 30 years, who died on Nov. 16, 2015, at age 61, after a nearly three-year battle with pancreatic cancer.