MORGANTOWN — Katrina Pardee scored a career-high 28 points to lead the West Virginia women’s basketball team to a 90-43 victory against Towson on Thursday, at the WVU Coliseum.
Pardee, a senior guard, was 11 of 17 from the field and also tied her career high with nine rebounds.
It was the Mountaineers (8-2) fourth consecutive win, all by at least 34 points.
West Virginia did its damage early by taking a 25-8 lead in the first quarter and Towson trailed, 47-19 at the half.
Pardee started things off with a jumper and later added a 3-pointer as part of a 9-0 run to start the game. She added another jumper, as the Mountaineers pushed their lead to 13 at 17-4 with 3:28 to play in the first.
“I thought we came out and played with energy,” West Virginia coach Mike Carey said. “It was good to see that. (Freshman guard) Madisen (Smith) hurt her tailbone a little bit, so we didn’t get to play her (in) the second half. Thank goodness (redshirt junior guard) Tynice (Martin) went down with no issues on that one. We didn’t get to play a lot of people (in the) second half, but I thought we did what we needed to do. I thought the first half, we played with a lot of intensity. (We) moved the ball and looked pretty good in the first half.”
The Mountaineers shot 46.8 percent (29 of 62) from the field and scored 29 points off of 23 Towson turnovers. WVU also held a 45-31 advantage on the glass.
Freshman forward Kari Niblack had a strong game off the bench, finishing with a career-high 19 points and she added six rebounds. She was 11 of 14 from the foul line.
Martin added 16 points and Lucky Rudd added 12 points, five rebounds and three steals.
The Mountaineers will host Niagara, at 2 p.m. Saturday in their final non-conference game before the start of Big 12 play.
