Nov. 27, 2011

Box Score | Photo Gallery

PITTSBURGH - Seniors Vanessa Abel and Alex Gensler combined for 43 points as the Duquesne women's basketball team defeated Davidson 84-53 on Sunday afternoon at the Palumbo Center. With the victory the Dukes improve to 4-1 on the season.

Abel scored a season-high 22 on 8-for-15 shooting and Gensler added 21 on 8-for-11 shooting including 5-for-5 from beyond-the-arc.

Three others registered in double-figures with Carly Vendemia scoring a career-high 11 points. Orsi Szecsi and Wumi Agunbiade added 11 and 10 respectively for Duquesne.

Sophia Aleksandravicius and Shneeka Carter each scored 12 points for Davidson who fell to 2-4 on the season.

Duquesne, who led from start-to-finish, started out the game by scoring the first seven points and by the first media timeout led 11-4.

The Dukes started off hitting seven of its first 13 shots (53.8 percent) as Belma Nurkic' s jumper at the 13:04 mark put the Dukes up by 11 points at 18-7.

With five minutes to play in the first half, Duquesne had built a 16-point lead after a Szecsi jumper made the score 33-17.

However, Davidson would go on an 11-0 run over the next two minutes to get within five points at 33-28 with 2:28 until halftime.

The Wildcats' Laura Murray would close out the first half scoring with a 3-pointer making the score 39-33 in favor of Duquesne.

The Dukes started out the second half quickly, opening up with a 15-2 run to take a 54-35 lead at the first media timeout.

A 3-pointer by Gensler midway through the half gave Duquesne a 20-point lead at 61-41. The lead got as high as 32 points after Vendemia's layup with 1:32 to play.

Up next for the Dukes will be Ohio University on Saturday afternoon. Tipoff with the Bobcats will be at 2:00 p.m.

GAME NOTES

• Duquesne scored 43 points off of 32 Davidson turnovers

• The Dukes scored 26 fast break points

• Gensler moved past Kelly Eberhardt and Gail Wilkins into 16th place on the Dukes' all-time scoring list with 1,100

• The 21 steals ties a Palumbo Center record set earlier this year agaisnt Buffalo. The old record stood since Nov. 26, 1991 when the Dukes had 20 steals against Penn - the school record is 25 steals (Dec. 3, 1991 at Saint Francis, Pa.)

• Gensler needs 33 more 3-pointers to become the school's all-time leader

• Vendemia's previous career-high was 10 points at North Dakota on Nov. 20