BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins women's basketball team placed four players in double figures and used a 10-0 third quarter run to fuel a 68-54 season-opening win against visiting York (PA) in Goldfarb Gymnasium Tuesday night.  The Blue Jays pick up their fourth consecutive win in the series against the Spartans and improve to 39-9 at home under head coach Katherine Bixby with the victory.
 
The Blue Jays led 38-34 just over a minute into the third quarter after a Taylor Burda three-pointer for the Spartans.  A Greta Miller layup 20 seconds later for the Blue Jays ignited the game-turning 10-point run, which included four points from Miller and buckets from Michaela O'Neil, Jadyn Murray and Kristin Ralston.  Another three-pointer from Burda halted the run with just under four minutes to play in the period, but the Blue Jays extended the lead to a game-high 16 (53-37) on a triple from O'Neil and a short Murray jumper in the lane and the Spartans were never closer than 10 in the final 12 minutes of the game.
 
Early on, Johns Hopkins jumped out to a 16-8 lead in the first eight minutes as senior Sophie deBettencourt knocked down a pair of three-pointers and freshman Kendall Dunham added one of her own to fuel an 11-3 run that turned a 5-5 tie into the 16-8 lead.  York had margin down to 22-19 early in the second quarter as the Spartans used an 11-6 spree of their own to jump back in the game.  A pair of Taylor Brenneman jumpers and a three from Tori Geitner ignited the run for the Spartans.
 
A pair of late second quarter threes from deBettencourt gave the Blue Jays a 36-24 lead with 90 seconds left in the opening half, but the Spartans scored five straight, including a shot from just inside halfcourt at the first-half buzzer from Savannah Wilson to account for a 36-29 halftime score.  Burda's three just 64 seconds into the second half made it 38-34, but Miller's layup a short time later jump-started the 10-point run that gave Hopkins a double-figure lead it would never relinquish.
 
Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Murray paced the Blue Jays with 13 points, while Miller (12), deBettencourt (12) and O'Neil (11) all scored in double figures as well.
• O'Neil had a career-high 15 rebounds and Miller added 12 as both posted the first double-doubles of their career.
• One year after finishing 13^th in the nation in rebounding margin, the Blue Jays were +22 on the glass (48-26).  O'Neil and Miller both had six offensive rebounds as JHU grabbed 17 offensive rebounds on the night.
• The Blue Jay defense harassed York into shooting just 34.5% from the floor.  Dating back to the start of last season, the Blue Jays have held 27 of 28 opponents to less than 40% from the floor.
• The Blue Jays got 27 points off the bench and held a 27-8 advantage in bench scoring.
 
Inside the Box Score – York
• Bradi Zumbrum scored a game-high 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting and added five rebounds.
• Burda chipped in with 12 points and six rebounds.
• Despite being outrebounded by 22, the Spartans scored 20 points in the paint with Zumbrum doing most of that damage.
 
Other Notes of Interest
• The win is the 80^th for Bixby as the head coach of the Blue Jays as she improves to 80-29.  She is also now just four wins shy of overall career victory number 125.
• The game was tied just once (5-5), York never led and the Blue Jays held the lead for 38:01.
 
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Friday, November 11 when the Blue Jays take on Messiah in the first round of Chuck Resler Tournament at the University of Rochester (11 am).
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