WILMINGTON, Del. – The Saint Joseph's women's basketball team took its first step in the Atlantic 10 Tournament on Thursday evening, defeating Davidson 64-53 in the second round at the CHASE Fieldhouse.
 
With the win, the Hawks (20-9) will face #3 Saint Louis in the quarterfinals, setting up a rematch from Hagan Arena earlier in the year. The Hawks won that matchup with a 71-47 victory in January.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• The Hawks held the Wildcats off the board for the opening 6:42 of the contest, able to grow a 9-0 lead before Davidson connected on the front end of a pair of free throws. The Wildcats started 0-8 from the floor on the evening.
• Julia Nyström would finish at the rack to extend the advantage to 11-1, the Hawks holding an eventual 13-5 lead at the end of the first.
• A pair of three-point plays from the Wildcats followed by an easy find down low capped off an 8-0 run to start the second, evening the score at 13 points each.
• Brugler stopped the bleeding with her seventh point of the game, but Davidson scored five-straight to take an 18-15 lead into the media timeout.
• Trailing as many as 20-15, the Hawks took over to close out the half led by Mackenzie Smith. Scoring five of the nine points for SJU over the span of the final three minutes, Smith and the Hawk defense held Davidson to just two points in that span as the sophomore from Nova Scotia closed the half with a strong take and conversion at the rim to give St. Joe's a 24-22 lead.
• Out of the break, the Hawks soon grabbed an 8-0 run after back-to-back triples from Smith and Laura Ziegler, forcing a Davidson timeout trailing 32-24.
• The Wildcats clawed their way back into the game, but the Hawks answered. Leading by 36-33, St. Joe's delivered an 11-0 run to end the third quarter, grabbing the largest lead of the night at that point with a 47-33 advantage. Four different scorers for the Hawks helped fuel the run, Smith leading the way with five of her 15 points in that span.
• Saint Joseph's propelled the run to 16-0 to start the fourth quarter, Jaden Walker emphatically finishing off the run with an and-one conversion to put the Hawks up 19.
• The lead grew to as many as 20 as another 6-0 Hawk run pushed the advantage to 58-38.
• The Wildcats were able to make one last push to cut the lead to single digits, but left it too late as two free throws from Olivia Mullins buried the comeback bid with under 20 seconds left, St. Joe's grabbing a 64-53 victory.

 
GAME NOTES

• St. Joe's has now collected 20+ wins for the first time since the 2013-14 team that went to the NCAA Tournament after a 23-9 record. This is now the 20^th time the Hawks have posted a 20-win season.
• Mackenzie Smith led the team with 17 points, recording eight rebounds alongside three steals and two assists.
• Talya Brugler and Laura Ziegler both went 6-10 for the field, finishing with 15 and 13 points respectively. Ziegler, who played most of the contest in foul trouble, had just three rebounds for her lowest tally since the conference opener.
• Olivia Mullins finished with eight points and three assists while Katie Jekot tallied a team-best five assists.
• St. Joe's scorched the net, shooting above 50% with a 25-47 (53.2%) effort from the floor despite shooting just 2-11 (18.2%) from deep. The Hawks also tallied 12-14 (85.7%) from the charity stripe.
• The Hawk defense held the Wildcats to just 22-55 (40.0%) from the floor.
• Saint Joseph's moves to 11-1 all time against Davidson, 2-0 on a neutral site.
• SJU has advanced to the quarterfinals in back-to-back seasons.

 
UP NEXT

• The Hawks and Billikens clash in the A-10 Quarterfinals on Friday, March 3 in a 7:30 p.m.