SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The Dominican University of California women's basketball team used a 25-7 third quarter to blow things open in a 97-81 victory over visiting BYU-Hawaii on Tuesday night in the Conlan Center.

The fourth-place Penguins (7-4/3-1 PacWest) built a seven-point first-half lead but saw the lead dwindle to just three by the end of the first half. Head Coach Tim LaKose's Penguins came out of the locker room strong though and went on an 11-0 run over the first five minutes to build a 59-43 lead. Later in the quarter, a 12-0 run capped by back-to-back three pointers from Carly Holboke and Alyssa Lorenzo gave Dominican its largest lead of the night at 26. It was smooth sailing from there for a Dominican team that shot 44.4 percent (36-of-81) from the field and 40 percent (10-of-25) from deep. The Penguins also went inside with the ball and outscored the Seasiders (4-5/1-3 PacWest) 46-26 in the paint.

That's where Sandra Ikeora did most of her damage. The sophomore forward scored a game-high 25 points on 11-of-16 shooting. She rounded out her performance with eight rebounds, three steals, two assists, and a block. Senior Melissa Boscarino had 21 points on 6-of-12 shooting and made a career-high four three-pointers. She dished out seven assists and had three steals. Junior Taylor Donnot dished out a career-high eight assists to go with a dozen points. Senior Allyssa Weatherd scored 14 points, grabbed a team-high nine rebounds, dished out seven assists, and three steals. Junior Carly Holboke came off the bench for 11 points on three three-poitners. Freshman Natalie Diaz scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds before fouling out late in the game. As a team, Dominican had 28 assists on 36 field goals.

Seasiders guard Jiashan Cui also had 25 points. Guard Celeste Claw added 15 points and Valerie Nawahine added 12 points in the loss.

Dominican and BYU-Hawaii are now 5-5 versus each other since 2009. The two teams will meet again next week in Hawai'i. But first, Dominican will host Holy Names (3-10/2-3 PacWest) on Thursday, Jan. 7 at 5:30 p.m. and Notre Dame de Namur on Saturday, Jan. 9 at 5:30 p.m. Dating back to 2009, HNU holds a 5-4 edge against the Penguins but Dominican enters Thursday with back-to-back wins with an average margin of 21 points in those two contests while HNU enters on a four-game losing streak with an average margin of over 27 points in those four games. Live stats and pay-per-view video will be available at dominicanathletics.com/live with live audio provided by Penguin Radio at radio.dominican.edu.