AVE MARIA, Fla.- The Ave Maria University women's basketball team continued their winning ways on Saturday afternoon with a 84-58 victory over the Eagles of Trinity Baptist College. The win, Ave Maria's second of the season against the Eagles, marked AMU's fourth consecutive win overall and moved the Gyrenes above .500 with a 6-5 record.

The Gyrenes took a few minutes to get going on Saturday afternoon, as AMU did not score in the first 3:23 of the game. Once the Gyrenes did though, AMU scored eight points in less than a minute to race out to an 8-2 lead. Ave Maria's lead continued to grow from there, reaching eleven points, 20-9, late in the opening frame. A layup from Trinity Baptist's Justine Vedrine cut the Gyrene lead to 20-11 entering the second quarter. 

AMU extended the lead throughout the second quarter, and took a 43-28 lead into halftime. The Gyrenes forced 
seven TBC turnovers in the ten minutes before the half, and rebounded nine of their 12 misses on the offensive glass. The AMU lead grew to 20 points on two occasions in the second quarter before settling into a 15-point lead at the break. 

Ave Maria all but put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring the Eagles 25-12 and building the lead as large as 30 points. The Gyrenes scored eight points in the first 68 seconds of the second half, extending the lead to 23 on a Colleen Shanahan layup and back-to-back threes from Gianna Santacroce. AMU hit all three of their long distance attempts in the third, and forced seven more turnovers to lead 68-40 after three.

Trinity Baptist did outscore the Gyrenes in the fourth quarter, but the game was already essentially sealed for AMU. TBC scored eight of their 18 points in the fourth quarter from the foul line. All 13 Gyrenes that dressed on Saturday saw time on the floor in the fourth quarter, which included the first points of the season for Danielle Domino and Issabelle Rennaker. 

Cathreveny Cherestal narrowly missed out on a double-double in the win, leading the Gyrenes with 17 points while pulling down nine rebounds. Lavariah Armstead filled the stat sheet, dishing out six assists and grabbing six rebounds to go with 13 points. Gianna Santacroce was the other Gyrene in double figures, making three of her four three-point attempts to account for nine of her eleven points. The Gyrenes set a season-high with 58 rebounds on the game, a total that tied for ninth in single-game school history. 

Following finals week, the Gyrenes will take the floor against unquestionably the best team they will play all season long. Ave Maria will head to Alico Arena in Fort Myers next Saturday to take on the FGCU Eagles, who entered the week as the No. 22 team in the nation at the NCAA Division I level. The exhibition game, which will be broadcast on ESPN+, is scheduled for 7 p.m. AMU's next regular season game comes December 14 on the road against Johnson University.