Chicago, Ill. – The Robert Morris Women’s Basketball team won two games and lost one in the Saint Xavier Holiday Tournament over the past weekend. The Eagles lost their opening game to the University of Saint Francis (Ind.), who are #7 in the NAIA Division II Top 25 Poll, by the score of 79-52 on Thursday, December 27th. RMU won their next two games defeating Viterbo University (Wis.) 72-61 on Friday, December 28th and Ashford University (Iowa) 80-72 on Saturday, December 29th to raise its record to 13-7 on the season.
The Eagles ran into a hot Saint Francis team, who entered the game ranked #7 in the NAIA Division II Poll and were undefeated at a perfect 12-0. Yolanda De La Torre scored the first basket of the game to put the Eagles up 2-0, but the Cougars took a 3-2 lead and never looked back as they never trailed again in the game and led by as many as 27 points in the game. De La Torre led RMU with 19 points and eight rebounds in the loss.
RMU took on Viterbo University (Wis.) in the second game of the tournament and the first half was a back and forth affair with the Eagles trailing Viterbo 37-35 at half-time. The second half was more of the same until 7:53 remaining when Danisha Cole put the Eagles up 53-52 with a lay-up basket. RMU took control of the game at this point and opened an eight point lead before closing out the game with a 72-61 win. Uniqua Hampton led the Eagles with a double-double, scoring 18 points and grabbing 13 rebounds while three other Eagles scored in double figures. Cole scored 17 points, De La Torre had 14 points, and Ashley Segers chipped in with 10 points.
The Eagles closed out the tournament against Ashford University, a team they will face two more times in the coming months. RMU opened up a five-point lead in the opening minutes but Ashford came back to lead 39-29 with 3:41 left in the first half and led 40-36 at the half. The Saints went back up by ten points with 18:35 left to play but the Eagles went on a 19-2 run to take a 55-48 lead with 14:06 remaining. The Eagles increased their lead to 13 points on a Uniqua Hampton bucket with 5:41 left to go and held off the Saints for the 80-72 victory. Hampton scored a game high 26 points and was named to the All-Tournament team for her play throughout the weekend. Segers also had a strong game with 18 points and 10 rebounds for the double-double and Cole added 10 points.
The Eagles’ next game is on Wednesday, January 9th when they host Indiana University Northwest at Attack Athletics in Chicago. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 P.M.