LATROBE, Pa. (Jan. 3) – The Saint Vincent women's basketball team opened up 2023 in fine fashion, clicking on all cylinders to defeat visiting Thiel, 81-34, in Presidents' Athletic Conference action at the Robert S. Carey Student Center.

Six different Saint Vincent (8-3, 6-2 PAC) players scored at least seven points, while SVC held Thiel (2-9, 1-6 PAC) to just 20 percent from the field.

Ella Marconi led the way on the scoresheet for SVC with a game-high 17 points, while also tying Madison Weber for her team's lead with nine rebounds. Emily Cavacini added 13 points and Emily Thompson 11 for SVC, while the Bearcat bench was led by an 8-point, 7-rebound effort from Lizzie Bender, a 7-point, 7-rebound performance by Camdon Bashor and a 7-point, 3-steal showing by Anna Betz.

Along with limiting the Tomcats to just 11 field goals on 55 attempts, the Saint Vincent defense forced 24 Thiel turnovers and totaled 10 steals, with seven different Bearcats recording at least one theft. The Bearcats, who held a healthy 54-31 rebounding advantage and a 46-16 margin in points in the paint, scored 29 points off of Thiel's 14 turnovers.

Cavacini and Thompson hit three-pointers on SVC's first two possessions of the night, but the Tomcats would battle back to cut the SVC lead to 8-6 with 7:08 left in the quarter. The Bearcats then took charge, outscoring the Tomcats 13-1 over the remainder of the frame to take a 21-7 lead after the opening 10 minutes.

Thompson, Weber and Cavacini each scored in the opening two minutes of the second quarter to extend the run to 19-1 and open the lead to 27-7, before the gap swelled to 22 points, 31-9, on a Marconi jumper in the paint with 4:50 left in the half. The Tomcats battled back to outscore the hosts 10-4 the rest of the way to close the gap to 35-19 at halftime.

Thiel eventually cut the SVC lead to 39-25 with 6:07 left in the third quarter, but the Bearcats answered with another big surge to put the game out of reach. Marconi scored nine points in a 90-second span to open up a 49-27 lead, before a fastbreak layup by Weber and two fastbreak buckets by Cavacini pushed the lead to 55-27 with just under two minutes left in the frame. Bashor would then cash in on a traditional three-point play to cap off a 20-2 SVC run and put the hosts in front 59-27 at the close of the third.

Saint Vincent stayed hot in the fourth quarter, outscoring Thiel 22-7 to account for the final score. The 22 fourth-quarter points were scored by seven different SVC players, led by seven from Betz, while Cavacini, Bender, Bashor, Jillian Mannarino, Diana Mosten and Cadence Smith also found the scoresheet.

Destiny Johnson paced Thiel with 16 points and nine rebounds.

After a two-week holiday layoff, the Bearcats will now prep for their second game in three days, when they travel to West Virginia to take on PAC foe Bethany College at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 5.