Rio women drop Brescia in battle of division leaders

Rio Grande Sports Information
     RIO GRANDE, Ohio - The River States Conference women's basketball standings showed it was a battle of division leaders.
     For the most part, though, the game itself failed to live up to its billing.
     The University of Rio Grande scored the game's first nine points and built a 22-point first half advantage on its way to an 83-70 victory over Brescia University, Saturday afternoon, at the Newt Oliver Arena.
     The RedStorm, who remained No. 8 in the latest update to the NAIA Top 25 coaches' poll, improved to 17-1 overall and 6-0 in the RSC with an eight straight win.
     Brescia slipped to 13-5 overall and 4-2 in league play with the loss.
     The Bearcats had a season-high 28 turnovers in the game, leading to a 21-3 Rio advantage in points off the miscues.
     Brescia actually survived the RedStorm's quick start and trailed only 18-11 at the close of the opening quarter, but the second stanza proved to be disastrous for the visitors.
     The Bearcats went just 3-for-12 from the floor overall, while also committing nine of their turnovers, as Rio opened up a 45-23 edge at the intermission.
     Brescia, to its credit, did make things a bit more interesting by outscoring its host, 27-17, in the third quarter to slice the deficit to 12 points twice in the final two minutes of the period.
     The guests only got one point closer the rest of the way, though, and that didn't happen until a conventional three-point play by Caroline Lucas made it 81-70 with just 18.8 seconds remaining.
     Rio Grande finished with six players in double figures and was led by senior Marlee Grinstead (Albany, OH), who established a new career-high mark with 24 points.
     Freshman Allie Ellyson (Glenville, WV) tallied 12 points, while sophomore Josie Graves (Barboursville, WV) had 11 points and a team-high eight rebounds and the duo of senior Marina Garcia Perez (Leon, Spain) and sophomore Payton Johnson (Peebles, OH) netted 10 points each.
     Junior Sophia Kline (Sugar Grove, OH) scored a season-low two points, but grabbed seven rebounds, handed out a career-high seven assists and blocked five shots.
     The RedStorm shot 47 percent overall (31-for-66) and 41 percent from three-point range (7-for-17), but hit just 53.8 percent from the foul line (14-for-26) and was outrebounded, 41-33.
     Brescia actually outshot Rio percentage-wise, hitting 47.5 percent of its shots from the field (28-for-59) and going 11-for-12 at the charity stripe (91.7%), but was undone by its inability to hang on to the ball.
     Brooklyn Stewart led the Bearcats with a career-high 22 points, while Lucas netted a season-high 20 points in a losing cause.
     Cassidy Morris added eight points to go along with a team-best eight rebounds and three assists for BU, while Hailee Johnson also had eight rebounds in the loss.
     Rio Grande is scheduled to return to action on Tuesday night when it hosts Indiana University East.
     Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.