AMHERST, Mass. – Senior captain Dani Valdez matched her career high with 20 points and grabbed 9 rebounds as the Amherst College women's basketball team claimed a 61-54 win over Little Three rival Wesleyan in NESCAC action on Friday night at LeFrak Gymnasium.

The Mammoths (12-2, 3-2 NESCAC), ranked 11th in the nation in both the D3hoops.com and WBCA Coaches polls, had already clinched their seventh consecutive outright Little Three championship and completed a sweep of the Cardinals (8-10, 1-4 NESCAC) for the 14th straight season.

Amherst is back in action on Sunday at 3 p.m., visiting Misericordia for a non-conference matchup.

GAME HIGHLIGHTS

* Valdez scored a pair of layups as the Mammoths opened the game on a 7-0 run and never trailed. Valdez tallied eight points on 4-of-5 field goal shooting by the end of the first quarter as the Mammoths took a 20-11 lead.

* First-year guard AnLing Vera hit a pair of threes late in the second quarter to push the Amherst lead to 16 and the Mammoths took a 35-22 lead into halftime.

* The Mammoths scored seven unanswered points to open the second half to take a 42-22 lead but the Cardinals responded, trimming the lead to 10 with a 14-4 run.

* The Cardinals made a comeback effort with a 10-2 run that bridged the third and fourth quarters, cutting the lead to 52-46 when senior captain Maddie Clark completed an and-one play with four-and-a-half minutes to go. The Mammoths held off the Cardinals from there as the teams traded baskets the rest of the way. First-year forward Tori DaCosta scored the final field goal for Wesleyan with a minute-and-a-half to go to keep the lead at six but it was free throws from there and the Mammoths wrapped up the win.



BY THE NUMBERS

* Vera tallied 13 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals, shooting 3-of-6 from beyond the arc. Vera is now shooting 11-of-15 on three-pointers over her last three games.

* Sophomore guard Reeya Patel scored 10 points and tallied a career-high 9 rebounds.

* Senior captain Courtney Resch blocked five shots to go with seven points and eight rebounds.

* The Cardinals held a slight edge in shooting, going 36 percent (20-of-56) from the floor while the Mammoths shot 34 percent (22-of-65). Amherst had the edge in three-pointers, shooting 38 percent (6-pf-16) from beyond the arc with Vera and Patel each knocking down three three-pointers, while Wesleyan was 24 percent (4-of-17) on threes.