NEWARK, DE -- Junior guard Tyresa Smith (right) scored a game-high 17 points and pulled six rebounds and junior guard Alena Koshansky drained three three-pointers and finished with 13 points and seven rebounds against her hometown team as the University of Delaware women’s basketball squad bounced back from Sunday’s loss at William & Mary to post a 67-47 Colonial Athletic Association victory over George Mason Friday evening at the Bob Carpenter Center.

Delaware (14-3, 6-2 CAA), the defending CAA regular season champions, never trailed the entire game on the way to posting the team’s fifth win in the last six contests and its seventh straight regular season home victory. The Hens swept the season series with the Patriots after posting a 74-63 triumph in Fairfax, VA back on Dec. 4.

George Mason (5-12, 1-7 CAA), which will host the CAA Tournament March 8-11 in Fairfax, VA, dropped its third straight. Lateisha Wade came off the bench to lead the Patriots with 15 points while Jen Daniels added 10 points and Moni Akintunde added eight points and game-high 10 rebounds.

The Blue Hens got a balanced effort as Melissa Czorniewy scored eight points and dished out a team-high four assists, Courtney Irving added seven points and four rebounds off the bench, and Arek Deng pulled seven rebounds and scored five points.

The Hens, who entered the game ranked No. 3 in NCAA Division I in scoring defense, allowing 53.0 points per game, forced 21 George Mason turnovers and limited the Patriots to 34.8 percent shooting from the field (16 of 46). Delaware has now held seven of its 17 opponents under 50 points this season. The effort was a big improvement over Sunday’s 73-62 loss at William & Mary in which the Hens had their four-game win streak snapped, and their streak of holding 46 straight opponents under 50 percent field goal shooting, when the Tribe hit 27 of 44 shots from the field for the game (61.4 percent).

This game was rarely in doubt as the Blue Hens jumped out to a 12-2 lead in the first four minutes of play capped by Koshansky’s first three-pointer of the game. The Patriots rallied to cut the lead to five points at 14-9 three minutes later but the Hens followed with a 7-0 run to go back up 21-9 and cruised to a 35-25 halftime lead.

George Mason cut the gap to three points at 38-35 on a three-pointer by Daniels just 3:37 into the second half, but the Hens answered again with a decisive 15-0 run over the next nine minutes to push the margin to 18 points at 53-35 with 7:23 remaining. The Patriots missed 12 straight shots and turnover the ball over eight times during the scoring drought before Tracy Ann Holness hit a three-pointer with 6:29 remaining.

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