RICHMOND, Va. (February 28) -- Old Dominion used a four-person double figure scoring attack to put away Virginia Commonwealth, 93-82, Wednesday night in Colonial Athletic Association women?s action at the ALLTEL Pavilion at the Stuart C. Siegel Center. With the win, the Lady Monarchs improve to 18-8 overall and 14-1 in the conference. The Rams fall to 15-11 overall and 6-9 in the CAA.

The Rams started the game strong, taking a 13-7 lead in the first five minutes with sophomore forward Kristine Austgulen scoring seven points during that stretch. Austgulen continued her hot shooting as she scored 13 of her team's first 17 points, but Old Dominion countered with sophomore guard Okeisha Howard (Virginia Beach, Va.) who netted her team?s first 12 points.

After a 30-second timeout called by Old Dominion and a media timeout, the Lady Monarchs went on one of their patented runs, scoring 17 of the next 20 points, including eight by freshman Myriah Spence (Espanola, NM) and 11 by Hamchetou Maiga (Bamako, Mali) to take a commanding 31-22 lead with 6:50 on the clock. The Lady Monarchs would increase their advantage to 12 before the Rams battled back to cut the deficit to eight, 44-36, at the end of the half.

In the second half, the Lady Monarchs maintained a lead the fluctuated between eight and 18 points. Old Dominion would use 10 second-half points from Tiffany Thompson (Clinton, Md.) to push the lead to 69-52 with 12:29 remaining, but the Rams would go on a 12-6 run to get within 11 points, 75-64 at the 8:07 mark. The Lady Monarchs again stretched the advantage to 18 with a 9-2 run to put the game out of reach.

The Lady Monarchs were led by Maiga?s fifth double double of the season. The swing player collected a career high 27 points (on 12-of-18 shooting) and 11 rebounds. Howard followed closely behind with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field. Spence (14 points) and Thompson (10 points) rounded out the top scorers for Old Dominion. Old Dominion will wrap up the regular season with a 7 pm game at Richmond Saturday evening. The Lady Monarchs will then defend their 10-time CAA Championship as the top seed in the 2001 ALLTEL Women?s CAA Championship at the Old Dominion University Fieldhouse March 8-10.