The Monmouth University women's basketball team jumped out to a twenty-one point first half lead and held off a furious second-half rally for a wire-to-wire victory over Central Connecticut State 73-65 on Saturday afternoon in New Britain in Northeast Conference action. The Hawks improve to 10-7 and 4-3 in the NEC, while the Blue Devils drop to 4-13 and 2-4 in the conference.

Monmouth was led by twin 16-point efforts from junior Brianne Edwards (Bloomfield, Conn./Suffield) and sophomore Jennifer Bender (Staten Island, N.Y./Staten Island Tech), while Marisa Jimenez (Carteret, N.J./Carteret) added 13 points.

"We were able to cause some turnovers early and get out to a lead thanks to our press," said Head Coach Michele Baxter. "Our defensive intensity was up for most of the game and we need that to be successful."

Monmouth came out of the gates fast, jumping out to a 19-9 lead behind an Edwards' three-point field and Jimenez steal and end-to-end lay-up at the 9:45 mark of the first half. The Hawks lead surged to 32-11, their largest lead of the game, at the 4:44 mark of the first half, following two Edwards free throws. Veronica Randolph (Deerfield Beach, Fla./Deerfield Beach) scored all eight of her points in the first half, including hitting two three-point field goals.

The Hawks lead would wilt to six at 44-38 around the ten-minute mark, but an Edwards lay-up with 9:35 left pushed it back to double-digits until late in the second half.

The Hawks shot 56.8 % for the game, and hit 18-of-24 free throws. They limited CCSU to 34.0 % shooting for the game, including 1-of-12 (8.3 %) from three-point range.

The game featured 59 turnovers, with MU committing 29 and CCSU giving the basketball over to the Hawks 30 times, and 46 fouls which resulted in 61 free-throw attempts for the game.

The Hawks return to action when they play out of the NEC for the final time in the 2006-2007 season by visiting Division I newcomer New Jersey Institute of Technology on Tuesday, January 23 at 7 p.m.