CLAREMORE, Okla. - The Rogers State women's basketball team came away with a 53-40 victory over Ecclesia College at the Claremore Expo on Thursday evening.

The Hillcats final non-conference victory wasn't their best performance of the season, committing 22 turnovers and shooting 30 percent from the field.

RSU opened the game on a 9-0 run, capped off with a layup by freshman Larrielle Giles. Senior Gianna Woods knocked down a shot with less than 10 minutes to play in the first half and gave the Hillcats their first double digit lead of the night at 15-4.

The Royals answered RSU bucket-for-bucket in the final nine minutes of the first stanza as the Cats took a 27-15 advantage into intermission.

Junior Madison Harris capped off an 11-0 run with a jumper to increase RSU's advantage to 21 points with 14 minutes remaining. EC cut the deficit to 40-25 with a 6-0 run. Freshman Jade Hardy silenced the rally with a conventional three-point play.  

Shannon Scott converted the backside of a pair of free throws with 3:23 to play to cut the Hillcats lead to 11 points but that was as close as the Royals would get to the lead.  Ariani Silva drained a trey to push the lead to 14 points and the Hillcats held on to the double figure advantage the rest of the way.

Woods led RSU with 10 points and eight rebounds as all 12 Hillcats made a mark on the scorebook. The Hillcats swiped 18 steals as the Royals committed 33 turnovers.

Rogers State (8-3, 2-1) returns to Sooner Athletic Conference play on Saturday as it hosts John Brown at the Claremore Expo. Tip-time is set for 3 p.m. The game will be streamed live at www.rsuhillcats.com/live.