ADRIAN, Mich. -- The Siena Heights women's basketball team opened the 2021-22 season with an 87-43 blowout win over Grace Christian inside the SHU Fieldhouse on Monday night. The Saints (1-0) finished the game shooting 48.5% from the floor in the victory.
Senior Peyton Banks led the way with 14 points on 6-10 shooting. Banks finished with two rebounds, an assist, and a steal. E'Anna Won and Sha'kyia Parker each tallied 11 points in their first starts of the new season. Won was 4-7 from the floor while also hauling in six rebounds, dishing six assists, and registering two steals. Parker shot 5-12 from the floor and pulled down three rebounds, two steals, and one assist. Jillian Gelso had a career night as she was 4-7 from three for a career-high 12 points off the bench for Siena Heights.
The Saints started slow, going 0-5 from beyond the arc to start the game. Despite the poor shooting, SHU held the slimmest of leads with an 11-10 advantage with 3:14 remaining in the first quarter. Banks completed the team's first shot from three with 2:48 left in the opening stanza to extend the Saints lead to 14-10. Parker responded with a made three the following possession before Hadley Gratz made a third jumper from distance to give the Saints a 20-14 lead with just over a minute and a half on the clock. Allye Minor hit a three with four ticks left in the first to give Siena the 23-17 lead.
Banks got things started in the second with five points in a 10-0 run that widened the gap to 33-17 in the opening two minutes of the second quarter. After that, a 3:38 scoring drought plagued the Saints until Madison Hamilton hit a layup to put the score at 35-19. A second scoring drought for SHU lasted the remainder of the half as the score was 35-21 in favor of the home team at the intermission.
The third quarter began with an 8-0 run sparked by a jumper from Hamilton that pushed the navy and yellow lead to 43-21. As the clock hit zeros in the third stanza, the lead grew to 26 points (58-32).
Gelso hit back-to-back three-point jumpers to start the fourth. Then, Eva Alcock ignited a 10-0 run with a layup, and the Saints built a 40-point advantage with just 5:21 left to play. A 7-0 run pushed the gap to 81-37, but the game's largest lead came with just 31 seconds left to play when Alix Carter drilled a three to give Siena an 87-41 margin.
Up Next
The Saints will now hit the road to compete in the Lawrence Tech Blue Devil Classic this Saturday and Sunday, November 6 and 7. Siena Heights will face off against Grace on Saturday for a 3:00 p.m. tip.