Owl Fall at Nichols, 77-62

WESTFIELD, Mass. –   Nichols College's Alyvia Smith scored 23 points and made 7-10 three-pointers to lead the Bison to a 77-62 win over Westfield State in a non-conference women's basketball game at the Nichols Athletic Center in Dudley, Mass. on Saturday afternoon.

Westfield will head to the semester break with a 7-3 record, while Nichols improves to 7-4 on the season.

Nichols ran out to a 28-point first half lead, blistering the nets from long range.  The Bison connected on nine of their first 19 three-point attempts, building a 42-14 lead with 5:10 left to play in the first half.

The Bison led 26-8 after the first quarter, taking advantage of 12 Owls turnovers to go with the three-point barrage.   Smith was 3-4 from behind the arc in the first 10 minutes of the game.

Westfield slowly pulled themselves back into the game, trimming the lead back to 16, 51-35 at the half.

Trailing 42-14, the Owls went on an 11-0 spurt of their own, getting three pointers from Kayley Downie and Ashley Ames to open and close the spurt, with Alexa Davis netting an old-fashioned three-point play and Morgan Berthiaume a layup in between.

Westfield opened the second half outscoring the bison 7-3 in the first 3:48 of the half to trim the lead down to 12 points at 54-42 after a three pointer from Caroline Galvani, but that was as close as the Owls could come.  Westfield would score just one more bucket from the floor in the third quarter and trailed 67-46 entering the fourth quarter.

Westfield had three players score in double figures on the afternoon, with Berthiaume and Downie leading with 12 apiece. Berthiaume added six steals, while Downie drained four of eight three point tries. Sophia DeAngelis added 10.

Summer Klein added 16 points and had six steals for the Bison, and contributed 3-4 shooting from behind the arc to the three-point volley.

Nichols finished 13-35 (37.1 pct) from long range – and 10 percent better than their season average, while the Owls were 6-23 (26 percent).  The Owls forced 32 turnovers, but committed 29 of their own.  Nichols was 14-19 (76 percent) at the foul line while Westfield was 10-18 (55 percent).

Westfield will break for final exams and the holidays, before returning to play at Dean College on January 3.