Jenny Wright enjoyed a career-best night Saturday, scoring 35 points to lead the Queen’s Golden Gaels to an 86-72 Ontario University Athletics women’s basketball win over the Western Mustangs in London.

It was the first time in her four-year career that the nursing student from Kingston surpassed 30 points in a single game. She shot a remarkable 71 per cent from the field—15-for-21—including 2-for-4 from beyond the three-point arc. She sank all three of her free throws and also had time to pull down five rebounds and steal the ball four times.

The Regiopolis Notre Dame grad, whose father quarterbacked the Queen’s football team for five years, 1979-83, scored seven points in the first quarter, nine in the second, six in the third and 13 in the fourth, including a three-point basket as time expired.

Wright has reached double figures in 14 of her team’s 15 conference games this year, averaging 15.5 points per game, eighth best in the OUA. She left Saturday’s contest just two points shy of the all-time Queen’s women’s record for points in a game, 37, set by Claire Meadows in 2005.

Liz Boag, with 19 points, and Abby Dixon, with 12 points and five rebounds off the bench, were other key contributors for the Gaels, who led by 11 points, 24-13, after the first quarter and essentially held it for the rest of a game in which the visitors scored first—a three-pointer, by Wright—and Western never held the lead.

Queen’s took advantage of 24 Western turnovers, from which the Gaels scored 30 points.

Maddy Horst, with 23 points, and Caroline Wolynski, with 21, were the top scorers for Western.

Queen’s, which ended a two-game losing streak and improved to 9-5, cemented its position in second place in the East division, a game and a half ahead of Toronto, as the Blues lost 72-70 Saturday at McMaster. Kingston’s Clare Kenney, another Regi grad, led Mac with 21 points.

The Gaels will take a crack at the eighth-ranked Marauders Saturday, when they play their next game in Hamilton.