Nov. 14, 2011

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PITTSBURGH - The Duquesne women's basketball team closed out the first half on a 30-0 run en route to a 90-46 victory over Buffalo on Monday night.

Four Dukes scored in double figures led by Belma Nurkic and Wumi Agunbiade with 16, Alex Gensler with 13 and Vanessa Abel with 11. Orsi Szecsi had a team-high eight rebounds and Jocelyn Floyd recorded seven steals as the Dukes improved to 2-0 on the season.

Ephesia Holmes was Buffalo's leading scorer with 10. Beth Christensen pulled down a game-high nine rebounds for the Bulls who fall to 1-1.

Both teams started out cold from the floor, missing a combined 9-of -13 shots.

UB's Brittney Hedderson's jumper at the 11:24 mark of the first half tied the game at 10-10. In less than four minutes, Duquesne scored 13 straight points, fueled by seven from Nurkic.

By the 4-minute media timeout, the Dukes' run increased to 21-0 as they took a 31-10 lead.

Baskets by Ahjah Hall, Floyd and a 3-pointer by Gensler closed out the first half scoring with DU going into halftime leading 40-10 after ending the period with a 30-0 run.

Abel hit a 3-pointer to open up the second half scoring, making the score 43-10. Finally, at the 19:10 mark, Nytor Longar hit a foul shot to give Buffalo its first point in almost 12 minutes. Longar's layup with 16:47 left was the first field goal for UB since Hedderson's in the first half.

Nurkic's layup with 1:48 remaining gave the Dukes its largest lead of the game - 46 points at 88-42. Carly Vendemia's layup with one minute to go was the final basket for the Dukes as they finished with the 90-46 win.

"The emphasis coming into tonight was defense, our post players did a great job of hedging, our guards did a good job of stopping penetration and we did an excellent job at forcing turnovers," said head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio.

The Dukes forced 35 Bulls turnovers.

"I saw a lot of good things offensively from our team. We executed some play that we've been working on and the players are getting more confortable learning our system and we got great contributions from all the players tonight," added Coach Serio. "Ahjah and Belma came off the bench and had great performances. As did Carly. Those three are going to be key performers for us along with our starting lineup. Our depth was key for us tonight."

The Dukes head to Grand Forks, N.D. to take on the University of North Dakota on Nov. 20th followed by North Dakota State on Nov. 22nd.

GAME NOTES

• The 33-0 run was the largest for the Dukes since a 24-0 run at Richmond on Jan.30, 2010

• The 44-point victory was the largest margin of victory for Duquesne since they defeated Niagara 100-42 on Nov. 28, 2008.

• The Dukes outscored Buffalo 42-14 in the paint and had 23 fast break points to UB's six

• Buffalo outrebounded Duquesne 38-36

• During the 33-0 run, the Dukes forced 15 Bulls turnovers and held UB to just seven field goal attempts

• This is the third time Duquesne had scored at least 90 points under Coach Serio (91 at Miami 11/24/10, 100 at Niagara 11/15/09, 100 vs. Niagara 11/28/08, 93 vs. Cornell 11/16/08)

Buffalo at Duquesne