SALISBURY, Md. -- Defense reigned for the fifth-ranked Christopher Newport women's basketball team on Saturday evening as the Captains (17-1) traveled to Salisbury University and extended the NCAA's longest active road winning streak to 39 straight wins with an 86-39 victory. The Captains forced 33 turnovers and held the home team to single digits in three of the four quarters on Saturday, dropping Salisbury to 6-12 on the season. 

Alivia Giles led the Captains' offensively with 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting while Camille Malagar added 14 points on 6-of-10 from the field. Rounding out a trio of double-figure scores in the game was Hannah Kaloi, with 11 points, while 12 different players wound up in the scoring column in the game. 

After allowing an 18-point first quarter to the Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference foe, the Captains heled the Sea Gulls to single digits in each of the remaining three quarters to sprint away for the win. Leaning on Malagar in the second quarter, the Captains pulled away by shooting 43.8 percent from the field (7-16) while holding the Sea Gulls to just three made baskets on 13 attempts. The 23.1 percent shooting performance in the second was a tick better than in the third, when the CNU defense held Salisbury to just 2-of-10 from the floor and 20 percent shooting. 

With the game knotted at 18 points apiece after ten minutes of action, it was a rapid 9-0 burst to start the second quarter that created some distance for CNU. McKenna Snively buried a right wing triple after a nice extra pass from the top of the key by Kaloi to kickstart the burst, which also included a pair of layups by Malagar and a driving finish by Hailey Kellogg off a turnover. 

Salisbury clawed back to within two, 27-25, with 3:26 remaining in the half, but CNU scored the last seven points to take a nine-point lead into the locker room, 34-25. The Sea Gulls stymied the run with the first bucket of the second half, but it was all Captains after that. CNU scored 16 straight points to open up a 23-point lead, 50-27, as the Captains defense held the home team scoreless for over five minutes of game clock. 

At the end of the third quarter, Christopher Newport had outscored Salisbury by a count of 24-6 and broke the game open with a 58-31 lead heading into the final ten minutes. The defense continued to dominate in the fourth quarter, holding Salisbury to just eight points on 3-of-12 shooting. The suffocating CNU defense held Salisbury to just 27.8 percent from the field (15-54) in the game including a 21.4 percent effor from beyond the arc (3-14). The Captains forced 33 turnovers and had 18 steals in the contest, highlighted by four apiece by Malagar and Kellogg. 

The well-rounded offensive performance saw 10 different CNU players find the bottom of the net more than once with two or more made field goals, while the bench scored 38 points in the game. Coming into the game, the Captains ranked third nationally in bench scoring with 37.6 points per game scored by the reserves. 

With the win, CNU extended the longest road winning streak in NCAA Division III history which stands second across all levels behind only UCONN's 62-game run between 2014-19. 

Christopher Newport will return home for a mid-week matchup on Wednesday against Meredith College at 6:00 p.m. It opens a stretch of four straight home games over the next two weeks at the Freeman Center.