Jenny Wright scored 20 points Saturday night to lead the Queen’s Golden Gaels to an 80-74 upset victory over the No. 2-ranked Ryerson Rams in an Ontario University Athletics women’s basketball game in Toronto.
Those 20 points moved Wright, a fifth-year senior from Kingston, into a tie for second place among the school’s career all-time scoring leaders with former teammate Liz Boag, who ended her intercollegiate career a year ago with 1,055 points.
Brittany Moore, who finished her days at Queen’s in 2012 with 1,652 points and went on to play professionally in Germany, is the school’s all-time leader.
Wright’s performance Saturday, which matched the season-high 20 points she scored against Laurentian in Sudbury in November, included 3-for-4 shooting from three-point range. The Regiopolis Notre Dame graduate also had five rebounds, a pair of assists and four steals.
The Gaels, the 10th-ranked team in Canada, led by a point going into the second quarter, then outscored the Rams 22-10 in the period to take a 41-28 lead into the break. Queen’s led by as many as 17 points in the fourth quarter, but a 9-0 run allowed Ryerson to draw within four points with 13 seconds remaining.
Forced to foul, the Rams put Andrea Priamo on the free-throw line and her two successful shots clinched the Gaels’ victory.
For the second night in a row, Robyn Pearson had a double-double for the Gaels, with 14 points and a dozen rebounds, to go with five assists and five steals. Priamo and Emily Hazlett each scored 12 points for Queen’s.
Ryerson’s Keneca Pingue-Giles scored a game-best 31 points in the losing cause, 15 of them the proceeds of five three-point baskets. Sofia Paska had 11 points and a game-best 14 rebounds for the Rams, who lost for the just the second time in eight conference games this season, the first time at home.
The Rams did themselves no favours, committing 25 turnovers that ultimately led to 28 Queen’s points.
East division-leading Queen’s, 8-1, won its fourth game in a row, and its sixth in a row on the road.
The Gaels will resume play Saturday at York.