Waterville, ME - The Northern Vermont University-Lyndon women's basketball team got the best of Friday night's defensive struggle, defeating Thomas College 50-42 for the Hornets' first NAC win in three conference starts.  The Hornets improve to 3-5 overall, while the Terriers fall to 2-8 overall and 1-2 in conference.

Lyndon jumped out to a 15-4 lead after one quarter and never trailed the rest of the game.  The Hornets exended their lead to 27-11 before the Terriers scored the final six points of the second quarter to make it 27-17 at the half.  Thomas battled back to within one point late in the third quarter before Lyndon's Tayler Courchesne (Wilmington, VT) drained a three-pointer to send the Hornets into the final period with a 36-32 advantage.  The Hornets pulled away from there for the eight point win.

Lyndon's Faith Poirier (Portsmouth, NH) was the only double figure scorer in the contest for either team, finishing with 11 points.  Alissa Mitchell (Milton, NH) pulled down nine rebounds and dished out three assists while Courchesne and Ellie Harrington (Fareham, Hampshire, UK) chipped in with nine and eight points respectively.  Molly Horton scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds for Thomas.

Both teams suffered from cold shooting nights in a game that was dominated by defense.  The Hornets converted 18 of 57 field goal attempts (31.6%) and only five of 22 (22.7%) three-point attempts.  Thomas struggled even more, making only 15 of 55 shots (27.3%) including only four of 18 (22.2%) from distance.  Lyndon held a 45-34 rebounding advantage and committed 22 turnovers to 21 for the Terriers.

The Hornets complete their Maine swing on Saturday when they play at UMaine-Farmington.  Tip-off is set for 3:00 pm.