SCRANTON, Pa. – The No. 12 University of Scranton women's basketball team (3-1) used a big second quarter to roll past King's (Pa.) in an 80-56 victory over the Monarchs (2-2) on Saturday afternoon as part of the Cross-County Challenge at the John Long Center in Scranton.

The Lady Royals led 16-8 after one quarter and outscored King's by a 23-10 margin in the second period to open up a 39-18 halftime lead.

Marywood defeated Wilkes 69-63 in Saturday's other game of the Cross-County Challenge.

Scranton came firing out of the gate and scored the first 14 points of the game capped by a layup from graduate student Abby Anderson (Scranton, Pa./Holy Cross) with 4:15 left in the first quarter. King's would answer with seven straight points of their own, but still trailed 16-8 after one. In the dominant second quarter for the Lady Royals, a four-point play from junior Bridget Monaghan (Florham Park, N.J./Morristown-Beard) kickstarted a 20-0 run over five plus minutes and an Anderson layup made it 36-11 with 3:37 left in the first half. From there, Scranton took the afore-mentioned 39-18 advantage into the locker room.

Things were straightforward for the Lady Royals in the second half as the Monarchs were unable to get any closer than 16 points which came at 59-43 with 8:52 to play. Following a timeout, Anderson sank a jumper and consecutive threes from Monaghan stretched the lead back to 24 at 67-43 at the 7:14 mark of the fourth quarter.

Monaghan led all scorers with 25 points on 8-of-11 shooting and also added four assists, three rebounds and three steals. The junior was joined in double figures by Anderson who had 15 points and nine rebounds and senior Emily Shurina (East Meadow, N.Y./East Meadow) who tallied 11 points and eight rebounds of her own.

In four games this season, Monaghan has averaged 21.3 points per game while shooting 52.0% from the floor and 65.5% (19-of-29) from three-point range.

Samantha Rajza led the Monarchs with 16 points in the setback.

The Lady Royals were 32-of-68 (47.1%) from the floor on Saturday and 7-of-20 (35.0%) from beyond the arc and limited King's 33.3% shooting (20-of-60).

Head coach Nick DiPillo's squad also held a dominant 54-25 edge in the rebounding battle led by Anderson's nine and eight apiece from Shurina and fellow senior Danielle McCurdy (Philadelphia, Pa./Archbishop Ryan).

Scranton closes out the Cross-County Challenge with a matchup versus Wilkes on Sunday afternoon. Opening tip at the John Long Center is slated for 3 p.m.

--LADY ROYALS--