Nov. 28, 2015 Final Stats | Photo Gallery 
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LOS ANGELES - Behind a career-high 23 points from freshman Cheyanne Wallace and a 22-point, 13-rebound double-double by senior Sophie Taylor, the LMU women's basketball team closed out play at the 2015 LMU Thanksgiving Classic with a dominating 95-50 win over UC Irvine Saturday at Gersten Pavilion.
For the second straight game, the third quarter keyed a big run by the Lions (2-4). But this time, LMU continued the run into the fourth quarter, pulling away from the Anteaters (1-4) for the 45-point win.
Leading 35-30 at the half, LMU came out on fire in the third period while also clamping down on defense. A Wallace free throw and four straight points by Leslie Lopez-Wood quickly opened up a 10-point advantage, 40-30, at the 6:52 mark. UC Irvine trimmed the spread back down to five, 55-39, with just under five minutes remaining in the period, but it was all LMU after that.
A Bree Alford free throw and a Deanna Johnson jumper got things going. The Lions then hit three consecutive threes and a Taylor layup capped a 14-0 run that gave LMU a 58-39 advantage at the 1:20 mark. A pair of Anteater free throws snapped the streak, but the Lions closed out the period with four straight points to lead by 20 at the quarter's end.
"I told them at halftime, shooting is contagious," said Head Coach Charity Elliott. "We've got to start hitting some shots and everybody will start hitting shots. We had two really, really big runs in the second half where we just weren't messing around, we were really playing together and it got contagious."
The fourth quarter was more of the same as Wallace opened things up with a jumper and Taylor followed with eight straight points of her own for a 30-point advantage with 7:24 to play. LMU's largest lead was 47 points, 95-48, before UCI closed out the game with a Paulina Santa layup.
After hitting a solid 42.4 percent from the field in the first half, the Lions shot 60 percent from the field in the second, including 4-of-7 from deep. Meanwhile, their defense held UCI to just 18 percent from the field in the final two frames.
Joining Wallace and Taylor in double figures was Deanna Johnson, who added 11 points off the bench. Alford had another solid outing with nine points and 12 boards while Andee Velasco dished a game-high seven assists.
"Today was a huge step for our team," Elliott said. "We saw what we can do and we saw momentum that we can build on. We have a lot of weapons and we're still just trying to figure out how all the pieces are going to work together."
Wallace was named to the All-Tournament Team along with Seattle's Taelor Ross and the Princeton trio of Annie Tarakchian, Amanda Berntsen and Michelle Miller (MVP). Princeton was crowed the tournament champion following an 85-48 win over the Redhawks.
The Lions begin a two-game road swing on Tuesday, traveling to face another Big West Conference foe, UC Riverside. Tip off is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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