MADISON, N.J. – The No. 4 University of Scranton women's basketball team (16-0, 5-0 Landmark) held an opponent under 60 points for the 14th time in 16 games and remained unbeaten with a 63-50 victory over the Drew University Rangers (13-2, 4-1 Landmark) on Wednesday night at Baldwin Gym in Madison.
This marks the third time in the last six seasons that the Lady Royals have started 16-0 along with 2016-17 and 2018-19.
After Drew held a 6-3 lead in the very early stages of the first quarter, senior Bridget Monaghan (Florham Park, N.J./Morristown-Beard) hit a jumper to ignite a 9-0 run capped off by a three from classmate Hannah Angelini (Baldwin Place, N.Y./Somers) for a 12-6 lead with 4:57 left in the period. Fellow senior Sara Walsh (Havertown, Pa./Haverford) then hit a layup with just over a minute to go in the quarter and the Lady Royals led 16-9 after one. The second quarter proved to be another strong defensive effort for Scranton as they held Drew to just four points in the first seven plus minutes of the quarter and a layup by freshman Kaci Kranson (Scranton, Pa./Holy Cross) made it 28-13 before the Rangers scored the final six points of the half to cut the lead to 28-19.
Following consecutive layups by the Lady Royals to open the scoring in the third period, Drew began to battle back and used an 11-4 stretch to cut the lead to six at 36-30 with 3:33 left. Junior Maddie Hartnett (Chatham, N.J./Chatham) sank a key jumper to halt the run and Scranton stretched the lead back into double digits with a 44-34 advantage after three. Kranson and graduate student Sam Rajza (Plains, Pa./Holy Redeemer) buried consecutive threes to open up a 50-36 lead with 7:27 to play in the game as the Rangers were unable to get any closer than 11 the rest of the way. Drew's Joey Meyers hit a three to cut the lead to 57-46 with 2:03 to play, but Angelini immediately responded with a layup and the Lady Royals held off the Rangers to remain atop the Landmark Conference standings.
Junior Maddy Ryan (Malvern, Pa./Villa Maria Academy) led Scranton with 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting and Kranson posted her first career double-double with 13 points and a career-high 12 rebounds (six offensive), while Monaghan contributed nine points, five rebounds and three assists.
Ryan has scored in double figures in five of her last six games and is averaging 16.8 points per game during that stretch.
Meyers scored 29 of the Rangers' 50 points on 11-of-20 shooting as the Lady Royals held the rest of the team to a combined 9-of-35 (25.7%) from the floor.
Scranton held a 43-33 edge on the boards including 14 offensive boards.
The Lady Royals were 23-of-60 (38.3%) from the floor and 5-of-27 (18.5%) from deep on the night to go along with a 12-of-17 (70.6%) clip at the free throw line. Drew was 20-of-55 (36.4%) from the field and 5-of-19 (26.3%) from long range.
Head coach Ben O'Brien's team will head to Juniata for a Landmark Conference matchup on Saturday with action getting underway at 2 p.m.