Staten Island, NY  |  The College of Staten Island Women's Basketball team picked up a lopsided win over the Lightning of Lehman College earlier tonight by a final score of 98-44.  The Dolphins, now one game within the .500 mark at 7-8, have won seven of nine games since their 0-6 start while the Lightning are 1-14 following the defeat.

The Lightning scored the game's first basket less than 30 seconds into the game, but this would be the final time they would hold the lead.  After Kayla Schmitter converted an and-one to put the Dolphins on the board and gave them the lead from the line, CSI surged ahead by fifteen points behind a 19-2 run.  It was a big first quarter for Megan McEwan who had 12 in the opening frame, nine coming on a trio of three-pointers.  Kristina Arvelo also knocked down a pair from beyond the arc in the quarter as the Dolphins feasted from behind the three-point line and took a 28-9 lead into the second.

Just as they did in the first, the Lightning scored the first two points in the second quarter, but once again the Dolphins answered with an extensive scoring run, this time a 17-0 stretch.  Deidre Foster and Brianna Robisky accounted for the first ten points, Arvelo connected from downtown for the third time, and Diana Todaro capped off the run with four straight to put CSI ahead 45-11.  The Lightning then scored six straight before the Dolphins got another three-ball from Lola Plamenco to quickly bring an end to the Lehman run.  The half would come to an end two minutes later with the Dolphins leading by an even 30 points, 51-21.

McEwan led the Dolphins with 13 at the intermission followed by Robisky and Arvelo with 9 each.  Schmitter and Todaro were strong on the glass with a combined 11 boards, six for Schmitter and five for Todaro.  For Lehman, Nina Gill registered over half of her team's points scoring 12 of the 21.  The only other Lightning scorers were Eriadna Vasquez and Fatomata Trawalleh with 6 and 3 points respectively.  The shooting disparity between the two teams was striking as CSI shot 51.3% as opposed to only 19.4% for Lehman.

Robisky continued her strong game and opened the second half scoring with a layup that gave her double-digits with 11 points.  This was immediately followed by a Jada Rogers and-one that put CSI up by 35, a lead that would only grow the remainder of the way.  By the midway point of the quarter, the Dolphins inserted an entirely new unit into the game and quickly added three more three-pointers from Arvelo, Plamenco and Elena Demontreux.  The hot shooting from the outside allowed the Dolphins to increase their advantage to 41 entering the final quarter.

After six straight points in the paint to open the fourth, Demontreux connected on her second long ball on three attempts to put the Dolphins up an even fifty points.  The CSI offense the proceeded to slow down the pace of the game down and allowed the remaining minutes to tick off the clock on their way to a dominant 98-44 victory.

The Dolphins got 20 points in 21 minutes from McEwan, 13 points and 8 boards from Robisky in 22 minutes, 16 points on 4-7 from beyond the arc from Arvelo in 20 minutes, and a 12-point, 10 rebound double-double from Foster in 20 minutes.  Gill and Vasquez both finished in double figures for the Lightning with 23 and 10.  Gill also pulled in 11 rebounds to give her a double-double, but her team struggled from the field once again as they shot only 25.8%.  As for CSI, they were able to stay up above the 50% mark through the entire second half and finished the game shooting 50.7% from the field.

The Dolphins return to action just two days from now on Friday at home when they face their final opponent of the season outside of the CUNYAC, Cabrini University.  Tip-off is scheduled for 5:30.

---

GAME VIDEO:

---