STEUBENVILLE – Franciscan women's basketball snapped a three-game losing skid with a dominant 78-62 win over Medaille College.

"Today, I really liked how we moved the ball and found the open player," head coach Suzy Delaney said. "I am just proud of how everyone played, up and down our lineup."

Medaille took an almost immediate 4-0 lead after just a minute of play, forcing the Lady Barons back on their heels, until freshman guard Gaby DeJesus hit a three-pointer at the 7:18 mark to get her team started on a 10-0 run. Then the Franciscan defense settled in, led by senior guard Monica Dawyot, and only allowed six more points for the rest of the quarter.

Dawyot had the most intriguing defensive assignment of the night as she guarded Marceann Dunning, one of Medaille's best players, and held Dunning to only seven points. Dawyot herself finished with eight points and nine rebounds.

"I am very proud of our overall defensive effort, especially Monica with a tough matchup today that she got the best of," Delaney said.

After sophomore guard Sarah Schriner made the first basket of the second quarter, the Lady Mavericks came storming back, cutting a 12-point deficit down to four points. Franciscan responded as senior guard Iliana Gonzales scored six of her team's next eight points to reestablish a double-digit lead, the senior's first six points of the entire game.  

Then it was sophomore center Lucia Westrick's turn to take over on offense, scoring eight points in the final five minutes of the first half to send the Lady Barons into the locker room up by 17 points. The sophomore earned her seventh double-double of the season by the end of the first half with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

"Lu played her heart out today," Delaney said.

With steady offensive production from multiple players, the Lady Barons had a 30-point lead by the end of the third quarter and extended the lead to 34 points with 8:08 remaining in the game.

"We really got a great lift from our guards, particularly Gaby and Sarah, moving the ball and making big shots," Delaney said.

Westrick led the Lady Barons with a new career high of 26 points while also grabbing 13 rebounds, nine off the offensive glass, in only 16 minutes on the court. Schriner finished as the second leading scorer with 16 points while Gonzales added 12 points of her own.

Franciscan moves to 7-15 overall and 6-10 in the conference with the win over Medaille. With only two games left in the season, the Lady Barons sit in a three-way tie for seventh place with Hilbert and Penn State Altoona while D'Youville and Mount Aloysius are currently tied for fifth place at 7-9.

The Lady Barons will hit the road one more time this season, traveling to Pittsburgh to take on La Roche College on Wednesday, Feb. 17, at 8 p.m. In the two teams first meeting, Franciscan handed the Redhawks their only AMCC loss of the season, a 76-69 upset on Jan. 18.