Feb. 24, 2010

Box Score | Photo Gallery

PITTSBURGH - The Duquesne women's basketball team ended its home portion of the regular season with a 69-40 victory over La Salle on Wednesday night at the Palumbo Center. The victory has made the 2010 senior class the most successful in the history of the program with 61 wins.

Alex Gensler scored a game-high 15 points for the Dukes, who end a three-game slide and improve to 19-9, 9-4 A-10 heading into the regular season finale at Saint Joseph's on Sunday afternoon. The 19 wins also ties the program record for regular season wins with last season's team.

Samantha Pollino surpassed the 1,000 career point mark with nine points and Kelly Britcher surpassed the 500 point career mark by adding 10.

Carly Vendemia pulled down a career-best 10 rebounds for DU.

Morgan Robertson scored 13 points for the Explorers who fell to 7-21, 2-11 A-10.

Duquesne, who led from start-to-finish, came out of the gates fast by taking an early 10-2 lead to start the game.

A Britcher 3-pointer at the 10:37 mark of the half put the Dukes up by 16 points, 22-6.

The DU lead would get as high as 19 points in the final minute of the half on a pair of foul shots by Gensler.

La Salle's Ashley Gale closed out the first half scoring with Duquesne leading 32-15 going into halftime.

The closest the Explorers would get was 15 points after a pair of Nadia Duncan foul shots with 15:18 remaining in the game. The Dukes followed with a 16-0 run over the next seven minutes to take a 31 point lead at 56-25.

Jocelyn Floyd's foul shots with 6:38 to play put DU up 34 - its largest lead of the game.

The 40 points and 15 field goals allowed were season-lows by Duquesne. The Dukes held the Explorers to just 27.3 percent shooting.

After shooting under 40 percent the past four games, Duquesne hit 44.1 percent of its shots (26-59) and was 8-for-19 from beyond the arc.

Sunday's game at Saint Joseph's will tipoff at 2:00 p.m.

GAME NOTES

• La Salle, who was coming off a school record 13 3-pointers in its victory over Rhode Island on Saturday, was 0-for-10 from beyond the arc
  
  
• The 34-point lead the Dukes has tied its largest of the season (34 at Niagara)
  
  
• Pollino joins Keri Pryor as a member of the 1,000 Point Club this season - Pryor scored her 1,000th point against Xavier - Bill Clark and Damian Saunders of the men's basketball team also scored their 1,000 career point earlier this season
  
  
• Duquesne's defensive performance ranks tied for eight all-time in the Division I ear - DU yielded only 40 points against Ohio on Dec. 28, 2004