The Marquette women’s basketball team opened up their season with an emphatic 74-38 win over St. Francis at the Al McGuire Center Saturday. Guard Lauren Thomas-Johnson led the Golden Eagles with 14 points while Jocelyn Mellen scored 10 of her own. Every other player on the squad who saw minutes scored four points.

“I tried to focus on defense and rebounding. That was today’s strategy,” Thomas-Johnson said. “I thought we started off a bit jittery … but once we got all of those out I thought we played great. I think overall we played really really well.”

The Golden Eagles only allowed a total of 38 points which is the least amount of points given up since Nov. 24, 2008 when they beat Toledo 67-28.

“Our defense was outstanding. That’s my focus,” coach Terri Mitchell said.  “You win games because of your defense, and even if your offense isn’t there you’re going to be fine.

“But for our first game, our opponent was great quality and I thought our players were very intense.”

St. Francis opened the scoring and Marquette took three minutes to get on the board. However, freshman Serena Simmons put Marquette in the lead after seven minutes and the Golden Eagles never looked back.

In the second half, Marquette went on a 14-0 run against the Red Flash, which put the game out of reach for St. Francis. The Red Flash didn’t help their cause either, making only six out of 31 field goals in the second half.

“We came out hard like we did our first two exhibition games,” Robinson said, who led the team with nine rebounds and dished out five assists. She also had four steals. “We know we had to get back on transition quick. I think we did a pretty good job with that. We held them to 38 points so I think that’s pretty good for our first game.”