PITTSBURGH, PA - Sophomore Melanie Gibbons (Bridgewater, NJ/Bridgewater Raritan) scored a career-high 12 points to help lead the La Salle Women's Basketball team to a 52-43 victory over the host Duquesne Dukes, Friday night in Atlantic 10 action at the AJ Palumbo Center.

 

Gibbons was 5-for-6 from the floor and hit her only two free throws, while she also added a career-high seven boards. The 12 points off the bench is the most by an Explorer this year.

 

Duquesne (6-11, 1-5 A-10) held the Explorers to just a three-point basket by senior Davineia Payne (Bear, DE/Caravel Academy) through the game's first five and a half minutes and forced La Salle into five turnovers. The Dukes struggled to hit shots, and could only manage to take an 8-3 lead.

 

La Salle (8-8, 5-1 A-10) used an 11-0 run over six minutes to take an 18-10 lead with under seven minutes left in the first half. Payne, who started hot for the Explorers - hitting her first five shots, including a pair of three-pointers - scored seven points in the stretch and Gibbons added the other four.

 

After junior Jenna Graber (Clarksburg, NJ/Peddie School) hit a three-point basket, the Explorers took their largest lead of the first half at 21-11. The Explorers took a seven-point lead into the locker room, despite turning the ball over 12 times in just the first half.

 

They held Duquesne to just 16.7% (4-24) from the floor and held them without a basket for the last 12 minutes. The Dukes used three free throws by Loui Hall in the half's last 1:16 to get the Explorer advantage back under 10 points.

 

In the second half, the leading scoring for both teams, La Salle's junior Crista Ricketts (Douglasville, PA/Daniel Boone) and Duquesne's Aiga Bautre, who were held to a combined two points in the first, began to score their points.

 

Bautre scored the Dukes first six points in the second half, cutting the Explorers' lead to just three points. However, Ricketts scored on a lay-up, her second basket of the half, and Graber's second three of the game pushed their advantage back to eight.

 

Duquesne used a 9-0 run in just over a minute to take the lead, at 29-28, as Bautre, Malgorzata Flaga, and Jocelyn Chandler all hit three pointers.

 

The teams traded baskets over the next two minutes, before the Dukes went cold again from the floor. Graber hit a pair of threes and Gibbons added four points in an Explorer 10-2 run that spanned almost six minutes. The Explorers then held on for the victory, despite hitting just 1-of-5 free throws down the stretch.

 

With the win, the Explorers have now won three straight games on the road for the first time in three years - it also surpasses their entire win total on the road last year (2). It is also the first three-game winning streak on the road in conference play since 2001. They are off to their best start in conference play since their first season in the A-10, a 6-1 start that finished 12-4 and a berth in the A-10 conference semifinal game.

 

Payne finished the game with a game-high 15 points and led the team with nine rebounds, while Graber added 12 points. 

 

Duquesne was led by Flaga's 12 points, while Bautre scored 11, all in the second half.