Women's Basketball Squelches Carnegie Mellon in Steel City, 66-52

Hum-Traverso's 12 Points Lead Balanced Effort for Surging Violets

Makenzie Hirz tallied 10 points and swiped a personal-best four steals.

Jen Hum-Traverso enjoyed her third consecutive double-digit scoring performance, leading a balanced effort with 12 tallies, as New York University earned a 66-52 victory over Carnegie Mellon University in a University Athletic Association (UAA) women's basketball contest Friday night at Skibo Gymnasium in Pittsburgh.

After leading by as much as 29-12 just 6:22 remaining prior to intermission, Carnegie Mellon (8-11, 1-7 UAA) climbed within 47-42 on a Jennifer Larsen three-pointer with 8:08 left in the game. Following a full timeout, NYU (12-7, 4-4 UAA) got back-to-back three-balls from Emily Foshag and Hailey Kimball to ignite a 15-5 surge that gave it an insurmountable 62-47 cushion and ensured their third straight victory.

NYU now owns 16 straight victories over Carnegie Mellon and is 36-9 all-time against its rivals from the Steel City.

"They responded out of the timeout and we knew we needed to respond," NYU head coach Stefano Trompeo said. "Knocking down those two straight threes was huge. I think we just got more focused and didn't want to lose."

Grace Carmen and Makenzie Hirz each finished tallied 10 points for the Violets, who also got eight points and 10 rebounds from Chrissy Kilmurray. Hirz also collected a career-high four steals as NYU notched 16 swipes while forcing 29 turnovers by the Tartans, turning them into 27 points. Carmen and Foshag added three steals apiece.

"I thought our activity on the defensive end was the difference in the game," Trompeo said.

In the opening half, NYU scored 18 points off 20 Carnegie Mellon turnovers en route to taking a 35-23 lead into into the locker room. The Violets forced 10 turnovers in the first 6:42 alone and set the tone by tallying their first 14 points in the paint. Seven different players produced early lay-ups to ignite NYU.

NYU shot 39.3% (22-for-56) from the field and 36.4% (8-for-22) from three-point range while hitting 14 of their 21 free-throw attempts (66.7%). Although Carnegie Mellon converted just 33.3% (17-for-51) of its shots, including a 3-for-19 (15.8%) showing from three-point land, it owned a 44-32 rebounding edge.

NYU will cap its road trip this Sunday with a 2 p.m. tilt against Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.