FORT MYERS, Fla. – With another well-rounded scoring surge, the FGCU women's basketball team defeated Ave Maria 102-54 Sunday night at Alico Arena.  The team moves to 3-1 on the season with help from five double-figure scorers, while Ave Maria falls to 4-4 on the year.
 
Ave Maria pressured the Eagles in the opening minutes of the game, but the home team pushed forward and held the Gyrenes to zero field goals over the last nine minutes of the first half to create a 37-2 run and break open the contest. After holding a 57-17 lead at the break, the Eagles produced a strong shooting percentage in the second half to maintain the lead and ultimately earned a 102-54 win.
 
"I thought Ave Maria came out really strong. They played with a lot of energy and enthusiasm early, but we had a lot of depth and we were able to get on a run with waves of different people coming at them," said head coach Karl Smesko. "I was really impressed with the way they competed. I thought DyTiesha [Dunson] and Kaneisha [Atwater] gave us a lot of energy off the bench and it's always great to see Taylor [Gradinjan] playing well."
 
Redshirt-freshman Taylor Gradinjan (Cudahy, Wisc./Cudahy High School) paced the Eagles with a career-high 16 points. Gradinjan went 6-for-9 with her first four shots falling perfectly and finished with four made shots from beyond-the-arc.  Freshman Haley Laughter (Asheville, N.C./Carolina Day School) also produced a career-high with 13 points in just 15 minutes on the floor. Laughter made 6-of-9 shots and pulled down five boards for the Green and Blue. Stephanie Haas (Avon Lake, Ohio/Magnificat High School) and Jenna Cobb (New Holland, Ohio/Miami Trace High School/Butler) each added 11 for FGCU with Whitney Knight (Winston-Salem, N.C./R.J. Reynolds High School) contributing 10 to the team's season-high point total.
 
Defensively, senior Anthi Chatzigiakoumi (Athens, Greece/General Senior High School of Kallithea) brought down a team-high six rebounds. Knight blocked three shots and the team saw Kaneisha Atwater (Fort Pierce, Fla./Fort Pierce Westwood High School/VCU) grab four steals.
 
As a unit, the Eagles shot 51.9 percent from the floor with a 39.5 percent clip from 3-point range, while holding Ave Maria to just 31.1 percent. FGCU made 17 3-point shots, its best performance since setting the NCAA record with 22 against ETSU in 2012. The team outrebounded the Gyrenes 50-36 and forced 18 turnovers. The Gyrenes mitigated the Eagle offense with six steals and five blocks but could not stop the FGCU passing game as the Eagles produced 26 assists on the night.
 
Gradinjan set the tone early with a long-range shot on the opening possession before Cobb swiped it clean on the Gyrene's first possession and laid it in on a fast break for the first two of 16 points the Eagles would collect off of turnovers in the first half.
 
Almost two minutes transpired before Ave Maria got on the board with a layup but Gradinjan and Cobb combined for another 3-pointer right away to move the score to 8-2.
 
The Gyrenes responded with a long-range shot of their own, but a Chatzigiakoumi layup and a pair of Haas free throws maintained FGCU's early lead, 14-8, with 11:47 to go in the opening half. FGCU extended the lead to eight points but a layup from Ave Maria midway through the half cut it back to six points at 21-15.
 
However, the layup would be the last field goal of the half for the Gyrenes, as the Eagles constructed a 36-2 run that allowed the visiting team just two free throws in the 9:41 of the first half.
 
FGCU's offense spread it around during the run with baskets from Katie Meador (Salem, Ill./Salem Community High School), Chatzigiakoumi, Atwater, DyTiesha Dunson (Albany, Ga./Westover High School), Cobb, Knight, Jessica Cattani (Muskego, Wisc./Muskego High School) and Jaime Gluesing (Solon, Ohio/Solon High School).
 
Gradinajan and Cobb were a combined 5-for-5 behind the arc to lead all scorers in the opening 20 minutes with 11 points. Ten different Eagles scored points in the first half while the defense forced 14 turnovers during that time.
 
The second half proved to be more competitive as the difference was only was only eight, but the Eagles' was never in jeopardy after the sizeable first-half advantage.
 
Laughter exploded in the second half, converting 6-of-9 from the floor en route a 13-point showing, all in the second stanza. The redshirt freshman also hauled in a team-best four boards in the final 20 minutes.
 
FGCU began the second half on a 13-7 run after five different Eagles scored in the first five minutes of the frame. Haas knocked down another 3-pointer one minute in to initiate the Eagles' run while Gradinjan, Laughter and Atwater all converted their 3-point attempts to settle into a 73-24 advantage.
 
Midway through the second half, the Gyrenes increased their scoring efficiency and nearly doubled their score over the course of eight minutes with an 18-13 run for the visiting team to make bring the score to 86-44 with six minutes remaining on the clock.
 
The teams traded layups in the game's 35th minute, but Laughter kept rolling and buried back-to-back layups to give the Eagles a 46-point advantage, 90-44, with five minutes to play.
 
Down the stretch, FGCU outscored the Gyrenes, 12-8, thanks to consecutive 3-pointers from Morgan Blumer (Milton, Wisc./Milton High School) and Chatzigiakoumi, while Laughter capped her 13-point half with a drive through the lane to score the game's final basket.
 
The 102 total marked the program's 12th 100-point game and fifth since joining the ranks of Division I.
 
The Eagles travel south to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the 2014 Paradise Jam in St. Thomas this week. The Green and Blue will face Wichita State, Clemson and Ohio State in three-consecutive days to end this week. The team returns to Alico Saturday, Dec. 6 to host Southern Mississippi in a 7 p.m. bout.
 
Single-game tickets for all FGCU women's basketball games are on sale online at FGCUAthletics.com, over the phone at 239-590-7145 or in person at the Alico Arena Box Office.

Group sales for women's basketball games are available for parties of 20 or more at a discounted rate.  Beginning this season, groups will receive the opportunity for to upgrade their package to include chairback seats, a PA announcement and a special FGCU group T-Shirt at a cost of $10.
For up-to-the minute information on the FGCU women's basketball team, stay tuned to FGCUAthletics.com and follow the official Twitter of FGCU women's basketball at @FGCU_WBB.

Head coach Karl Smesko earned his fourth-consecutive Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year award after a successful 2013-14 campaign. Under his direction, the team completed the season with a record of 26-8, including a 17-1 mark in conference action and won the program's 300th win in January. Smesko guided the Eagles to their fourth-consecutive regular season championship and went undefeated in the A-Sun Conference tournament to win their second Tournament Championship in three seasons.  The 2013-14 season marked the 10th-consecutive season in which a Smesko coached team won at least 20 games.  He has recorded 314 wins at FGCU with 117 Atlantic Sun victories.  The five-time Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year ranks among an elite list of just four active Division I coaches with a career win percentage of .800 or higher.  Smesko joins Connecticut's Geno Auriemma, Baylor's Kim Mulkey and Stanford's Tara VanDerveer in the esteemed group.