PURCHASE, N.Y. – Shooting a season-best 53 percent from the field, the Manhattanville College women's basketball team rolled to an 88-47 win over Skyline foe Purchase College on Saturday. With the latest iteration of the Battle of Anderson Hill Road going in favor of the home team, the Valiants remain perfect at 8-0 on the season and 4-0 against the Skyline Conference.

Five different Valiants reached double figures in the win, including four of the Manhattanville starting five. Spencer Shore (Boca Raton, Fla./West Boca Raton), Ali Mikaele (Silver Spring, Md./St. Andrew's Episcopal School) and Niyona Smith (Towson, MD/Concordia Prep) each had 16 points in the effort to lead the team. Shore has been on fire as of late, now scoring 56 points across her last three contests. For Mikaele, it was her second-straight game in double digits, while the rookie Smith posted her highest point total since her 23-point outing on Nov. 20 against St. Joseph's Long Island. Faith Johnson-Desilvia (Riverhead, N.Y./Riverhead) and Claudia Valentin (Cambridge, Mass./Cambridge Rindge & Latin School) both scored 12 for the Vals as well.

Manhattanville outrebounded the Panthers 43-31 on the day. Each one of the 11 players that saw playing time on the day ended the contest with a rebound. Johnson-Desilvia fell just two boards shy of a double-double, pulling down eight. Shore and Smith each added seven rebounds, with Smith recovering three off the offensive glass.

Despite the final score, the Panthers hung around with the Valiants in the first quarter. Manhattanville wouldn't hold a multiple possession lead until a Johnson-Desilvia layup with 3:35 remaining put the Valiants ahead 12-7. The basket was the start of a 10-3 run for Manhattanville that was in turn followed up by a 5-2 run of Purchase's to end the quarter with the Valiants up 22-15.

The Valiants began to pull away in the second, scoring the first nine points of the stanza. Purchase did cut the Manhattanville lead back down to 10, but the Valiants would outscore the Panthers 18-5 over the closing 5:45 to take a 51-28 advantage into the half.

Manhattanville would outscore Purchase 37-19 in the second half, capped off by a 17-3 margin in the fourth quarter to close out the win.

Up Next
The Vals head on the road on Tuesday, traveling to Farmingdale State for a 7 p.m. tipoff against the Rams.

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