Box Score
LENNOXVILLE, Que -- Jennifer Silver came off the bench to score a game-high 14 points and Mariam Sylla pocketed another "double-double" as the No.8-ranked McGill women's basketball team came away with a 52-37 road victory over Bishop's at the Mitchell gymnasium, Friday.

The Martlets, who all but clinched the RSEQ regular season pennant, reduced their magic number to one. With a 12-2 record and two games remaining, any combination of McGill victories or Concordia (9-4) losses will lock up first-place in the Quebec conference for the second consecutive season.
 
Silver, a 5-foot-11 freshman forward from Montreal, shot 6-for-11 from the floor and 2-for-2 from the foul-line. The pre-med student was also credited with nine rebounds and two blocks. Her play off the bench is picking up at a perfect point in the season as she is averaging just over 10 points per-game in her last five contests.

"She is just getting to know our system and finding a rhythm," said Martlets head coach Ryan Thorne. "She will be a big help for us down the stretch. That is why we brought her (into the program). She can play inside, shoot with range and run the floor really well."

Sylla, the primary scoring option for the Martlets, registered her seventh "double-double" of the season, scoring 12 points and grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds. She shot 4-for-6 from the field and was perfect in all four attempts from the charity stripe.
 
Bishop's, which dropped to 0-14, came out with lots of energy and contested the division-leading Martlets early, taking a surprising 12-9 lead by the end of the first quarter. "We came off back-to-back games and were playing a team that was well rested," explained Thorne. "They just simply came out more energized."
 
The Martlets quickly flipped the switch in the second quarter, however, outscoring the Gaiters 16-4 to take a 25-16 lead into halftime and extending that to 42-22 after three stanzas before easing off the throttle and making liberal substitutions in the fourth.

The game was a heated affair that featured four rare technical fouls, three of them against the Martlets. Sylla was assessed a "T" for elbowing in the third quarter and Thorne, the McGill bench boss was nailed with a pair of technicals in the final quarter for apparently arguing that another Bishop's player merited a technical foul.
 
Naomie Zitt-James and Catherine Rondeau paced the Gaiters with nine points apiece. Rondeau's effort included a rough 1-for-13 performance from beyond the arc.  

McGill controlled the glass, out-rebounding Bishop's by a whopping 41-25 margin.  The Martlets shot 40.8 per cent from the field (20/49), went 3-for-13 from three-point range and sank nine of 10 from the line. Bishop's connected on only 27.7 per cent from the floor (13/47), including 3 of 20 from downtown. The Gaiters knocked down eight of 13 attempts from the stripe.

Bishop's (0-13) will battle third-place UQAM (8-5) on the road this Sunday afternoon.  The Martlets have a five-day break before hosting UQAM on Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. 
 

FOR MORE INFO CONTACT:
 
Ryne Bondy and Earl Zukerman
McGill Sports Info Office
514-398-7012