Orangeburg, N.Y. (11/15/13)  The Dominican College and St. Thomas Aquinas College women's basketball teams were victorious on night one of the First Annual Regina Rivera Memorial Tournament hosted by Dominican College on Coach Baxter Court  at the Hennessy Center.  Dominican topped Molloy College, 80-69 in the opening game, while the Spartans defeated Nyack College, 77-60.

The Lions opened the game with the first six points, before a 6-0 Lady Charger run tied the game at 6-6.  A jumpshot later from guard LaShonda Hathorne (Queens, N.Y.) gave DC their first lead of the game, 8-7, and the team went on a 7-2 run to go ahead 15-9 with 12:38 left in the first half.

With 11 ticks on the clock, sophomore Taylor Trotman (East Orange, N.J.) hit a three-point basket to give DC their biggest lead of the half (38-29) and they went into the break with a 38-31 lead.

Dominican never trailed in the second stanza and used a KC Jentzen* (Pearl River, N.Y.) layup wiht 11:21 to go to extend their lead to 20 points (58-38).  Molloy battled back to cut the deficit to eight points (75-67) with 1:31 to go, but that would be as close as they would get as DC went on to the 80-69 win.

Senior Jentzen led all scores and had the game's only double-double with a career high 29 points (15-16 from the charity stripe) and added 15 rebounds (12 of them defensive).

Senior Nicole Welton* (Southbury, Conn.) netted a career high 13 points (all from the three point arc) and Hathorne finished with 13 points.

Freshman Jacqueline Rywalt (Pleasant Valley, N.Y.) had a game best six assists in the win.

In the second game of the night, the Spartans used a 20-1 second half run to pull away with the 77-60 win over the Warriors of Nyack College.

In action tomorrow, Molloy will face Nyack at 12pm and the Spartans will take on the Lady Chargers at 2pm in the finale of the First Annual Regina Rivera Memorial Basketball Tournament.