LATROBE, Pa. (Nov. 27) – The Saint Vincent women's basketball team held off a late charge by visiting Waynesburg to defeat the Yellow Jackets 72-67 in each team's Presidents' Athletic Conference opener in the Robert S. Carey Student Center.
 
Four players scored in double figures for the Bearcats (2-3, 1-0 PAC), with Emily Cavacini bucketing 18 points, Alana Winkler 14 and Anna Betz and Taylor Geer 12 points apiece. Ella Marconi paced the hosts with 11 rebounds and 5 blocked shots.
 
Saint Vincent jumped out to a hot start, roaring out to a 13-3 lead midway through the first quarter, with five points from Cavacini and six from Geer over the span. Waynesburg would twice cut the deficit to six points over the closing stages of the quarter, but the Bearcats would eventually close the quarter with a 21-12 lead.
 
A basket by Autumn Fennell three minutes into the second quarter gave SVC its largest lead of the half, 27-14, but the Yellow Jackets charged back to score eight straight points, capped off by a three-pointer from Avery Robinson, to pull to within five, 27-22. With just less than two minutes left, a jumper by Geer pushed the Bearcat lead back into double digits, 34-24, before a late Waynesburg three accounted for the halftime score of 36-27.
 
The Bearcats forced 12 Waynesburg turnovers in the first half and limited the Yellow Jackets to just 34 percent from the field, but five of their 10 field goals came from behind the arc.
 
SVC started the second half in much of the same fashion as the first, using an 8-2 run out of the gates to take a 44-30 lead on a Geer layup with just over seven minutes left in the quarter. The Saint Vincent lead continued to grow over the next few minutes, eventually stretching to 53-36 on a Winkler layup with 3:11 left. The Bearcats managed just two points over the final three minutes of the quarter, with two free throws from Winkler, but would still maintain a 55-41 lead heading into the game's final 10 minutes.
 
A three-pointer from Betz and a driving layup from Cavacini opened up another 16-point lead for the Bearcats, 64-48, with 7:30 left, but the Yellow Jackets countered with an 11-0 run to make it just a five-point game, 64-59, with just over four minute left. Buckets from Marconi and Lizzie Bender pushed SVC's lead to 68-59 with 2:37 left, but the Jackets hit a pair of three-pointers in a 70-second span to pull to within 68-65 with 29 seconds to go. Two Waynesburg foul shots with 15 seconds remaining would then make it a two-point game, 69-67, but Cavacini iced the game by going 3-for-4 from the foul line over the final 12 seconds to close out the victory.
 
Kacey Kastroll led the Yellow Jackets (0-6, 0-1 PAC) with 22 points, including a 4-for-5 mark from behind the arc, while Robinson tallied 12 points and a team-high 9 rebounds.
 
Saint Vincent will now continue its season-long four-game homestand when it hosts PAC rival Chatham on Wednesday, Dec. 1, at 5:30 p.m.