WASHINGTON - In its first home game in nearly a year, the American University women's basketball team clinched the weekend sweep over Loyola Maryland on Sunday, besting the Greyhounds 67-58.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Junior Jade Edwards led the field with her second double-double of the season, scoring a game-high 19 points along with 10 rebounds and a game-high five assists.
• Senior Indeya Sanders added a season-high 15 points and filled the stat sheet with a season-high eight rebounds, three assists, a block, and a steal in her full 40 minutes.
• Sophomore Karla Vres was back in the starting lineup for the second time in her career and continued to impress on the offensive end with a dozen points. This is the third game in the last four that Vres has landed in double-figures after hitting a career-high 12 against Navy on January 16, then besting that during Saturday's road win over Loyola with 14 points. The most accurate shooter on the team, she is hitting 64.3 percent on the season after making 5 of 10 on Sunday, including 2-for-3 from three. Vres also added a pair of blocks and came away with one steal.
• Freshmen Kayla Henning and Emily Johns once again added the spark off the bench, scoring seven points each. A career-high for Henning in scoring, she also topped her previous best with four rebounds.
• All eight Eagles contributed points, and all but one added at least one rebound as AU led Loyola on the boards, 37-32, including a 10-7 edge in offensive rebounds.
• Delaney Connolly paced the Greyhounds with 13 points and five rebounds off the bench while Emily McAteer added another 11 points and a team-high six boards.
• American continues to control the paint, putting up 30 points inside to Loyola's 22. The Eagles also led in second chance points, 7-4, but the Greyhounds held the edge in points off turnovers, 17-15. Both teams gave up 19 miscues.
• The Eagles closed shooting 44.6 percent from the field (25-56) but went only 4-for-18 from three (.222) and 13-for-22 from the line (.591).
• First Quarter ... Both teams struggled with possession in the opening stanza, combining for 17 of the game's total 38 turnovers. The Greyhounds picked up six points off the Eagles' eight miscues while AU added eight points off Loyola's nine. The Eagles also struggled to find their rhythm inside as Loyola held an 8-0 advantage inside. A long jumper from freshman Ivy Bales, and a three from Sanders after a Loyola turnover, gave American an early edge. The Greyhounds knotted the score three times, but each time AU had an answer as Edwards and Vres pulled the Eagles back ahead. A three from Vres, who closed with nine of AU's 16 points in the quarter, gave the Eagles their largest lead yet at 16-11 with under a minute remaining, but a late fast break layup from Loyola's Taleah Dixon off an AU turnover cut the lead back down to three as the two teams went into the huddle at 16-13.
• Second Quarter ... The Greyhounds hit an early run out of the break, picking up their second and final lead of the evening at 20-16 to force an AU timeout. Freshman Kayla Henning gave up a turnover out of the huddle but ran it down, grabbing the defensive rebound on the other end and drawing the foul on the fast break layup to pick up three points and bring AU back within one. A bad pass during Loyola's next possession sent the Eagles back on offense, where junior Taylor Brown found Henning under the basket for another layup to bring the American back ahead by one. AU continued to slowly build on that lead throughout the rest of the half before closing with its largest lead of the game after a late layup from Sanders sent the Eagles into the locker room up by 11 at 38-27.
• Third Quarter ... Loyola cut into the AU lead during the third quarter, landing within five on a couple of occasions. But Edwards and Henning had a response both times until the final three minutes of the stanza when a pair of Connolly free throws and a bucket from Charia Roberts cut the Eagles lead down to three, 44-41. Henning missed the three on the other end but Edwards came down with the offensive board and put up the layup through traffic to keep the Greyhounds at bay. Johns closed the quarter's scoring for AU with a pair of layups to send the team into the final break ahead, 50-44.
• Fourth Quarter ... The Greyhounds once again landed back within three in the early minutes of the final quarter, but it was the final time they were a possession away as an Edwards layup, off a long pass from Sanders in transition, sent American on a 9-0 run to pick up the largest lead of the game at 61-49. Late fouls from AU almost opened the door for Loyola, though, as the Greyhounds went 5-for-6 from the line with less than 90 seconds remaining to break back within five. But as the clock wound down, Loyola put Sanders and sophomore Lauren Stack on the line where they hit 4-for-6 to close the game with the 67-58 win.

POSTGAME ZOOM WITH COACH GEBBIA


NEXT UP
American will take on Lafayette next weekend, starting with a visit to Easton, Pa., on Saturday, Jan. 30, before returning home to host the Leopards at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

For the latest on American University Women's Basketball, stay tuned to AUEagles.com and follow the team on Twitter (@AU_WBasketball) and Instagram (@auwbasketball).