St. Bonaventure, N.Y. — St. Bonaventure scored the final 11 points of the third quarter and beat the Youngstown State women's basketball team 55-47 on Saturday afternoon at the Reilly Center.

Shay-Lee Kirby made five of her six 3-pointers in the first half, and Dena Jarrells scored 13 points. The Bonnies held Youngstown State's posts to two points, and they swarmed leading scorer Emily Saunders on every touch to keep her without a field goal attempt in 22 minutes. Saunders recorded a career-high four blocks on the defensive end and grabbed a game-high seven rebounds.

St. Bonaventure had five players score between nine and 11 points, and forward Claire Cody made three 3-pointers while scoring a team-high 11. She made a 3-pointer to start the decisive burst in the third quarter, and she hit another during that stretch as St. Bonaventure flipped a 31-29 deficit to a 40-31 lead at the end of the period. The Bonnies also scored the first two points of the fourth quarter to take a 42-31 advantage.

Youngstown State got as close as five at 48-43 when Haley Thierry, who made her first career start, scored at the 3:29 mark of the fourth, but SBU's Dani Haskell hit a 3 on the next possession to push the margin back to eight. The difference was at least six the rest of the way.

Youngstown State shot 35.2% from the field, and nine of its 19 field goals in the game were from beyond the arc. The Penguins missed their only free-throw attempt.

St. Bonaventure shot 40.7% overall and made seven 3s, and the Bonnies went 4-for-6 at the charity stripe. The Bonnies held a 37-29 rebounding edge, and most of the 50-50 balls went in their favor.

The Penguins dropped to 4-7 overall with the loss, and the Bonnies improved to 3-7 as they prevailed on their home court in the first-ever meeting between the two schools.

YSU missed its first four attempts and had three turnovers in the first two minutes of the game before Kirby got hot. She went on a 9-2 run by herself by making three 3-pointers in a stretch of 2:27 to give Youngstown State a 9-5 lead.

St. Bonaventure scored the next six points as YSU went more than five minutes between Kirby's 3-pointer at the 5:13 mark and Jarrells' driving layup in the final seconds that tied the game at 11.

St. Bonaventure went on a 9-2 run to start the second period to go up 20-13 on a layup by Isabellah Middleton with 6:38 on the clock. Kirby hit a 3 13 seconds later, and YSU outscored the Bonnies 7-3 the rest of the half to make the score 23-21 at halftime.

YSU's first points of the second half came on Kirby's sixth 3-pointer at the 5:59 mark, and the Penguins went ahead 29-27 following a 3-pointer by Jarrells and a layup by Thierry. Youngstown State's final lead of the afternoon came when Lindsey Linard scored at the 3:27 mark to make the score 31-29.

The Penguins didn't score for more than four minutes after the Linard bucket, and that's when the Bonnies scored the final 11 points of the third and the first two points of the fourth quarter to take their insurmountable 42-31 lead.

Youngstown State will try to enter the holiday break on a positive note as it will host Canisius on Thursday at 11 a.m.