Box Score BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Lehigh defeated Saint Peter's 74-42 in non-conference women's basketball action on Wednesday.
Hala Mostafa (Cairo, Egypt/Modern Narmer Language School) paced the Peacocks (1-4) with a career-high 19 points. The senior went 9-for-14 from the floor, including 1 of 2 from behind the arc to break her old career best of 18 points set against Marist on Feb. 26, 2015.
Lexi Martins powered the Mountain Hawks (5-0) with 23 points while Kerry Kinek added 22 points and 11 rebounds in the winning effort.
Lehigh jumped out to the advantage from the tip and never looked back for the Mountain Hawks sixth-straight win in the series against Saint Peter's.
With Lehigh leading 12-7 in the first quarter, the Mountain Hawks went on a 13-4 run to close the quarter to take a 25-11 advantage. It was the Kinek and Martins show with the tandem combining for 11 of the 13 points.
In the second quarter, Lehigh outscored the Peacocks 18-2 to take a 43-13 margin going into the locker room. Martins, Quinci Mann and Elizabeth Sharlow each had four points in the quarter.
Mostafa scored 11 of the 13 points for Saint Peter's in the first half.
The Peacocks put an 11-2 run in the third quarter to trim the margin to 49-28 in a span of three minutes and 30 seconds. Marcia Senatus (Roselle, N.J./Trenton Catholic) and Samantha Meier (Manalapan, N.J./Manalapan) started the run with baskets at 5:49 and 5:02, respectively. After Kinek hit a jumper at 4:35, Saint Peter's rolled off the next seven points thanks to a pair of Talah Hughes (Beacon, N.Y./Beacon) layups and a Sajanna Bethea (Levittown, Pa./Pennsbury) traditional-point play.
Lehigh ended the quarter on a 7-2 run to end the stanza with a 56-30 lead and went on for the 74-42 victory.
Hughes added six points for the Jersey City team while Bethea had nine boards.
Saint Peter's returns to action when it heads down Route 78 for the second time in a row at Lafayette on Sunday. Game time is 4:30 p.m.
