News Release

ASHLAND, VA — The Randolph-Macon College womens’ basketball team secured its fifth consecutive 20 win season with a 83-58 victory over Lynchburg College Friday night in Old Dominion Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball action.

R-MC now stands at 20-4 overall, 17-2 in the ODAC and can lock up the top-seed in next week’s league tournament with a win over Hollins University on Saturday. Lynchburg drops to 7-17 overall and 7-12 in the ODAC.


Former R-MC standout Megan Silva during the pregame ceremony to honor her.
(Photo by Skip Rowland)

The Yellow Jackets were paced byMolly Ariail who tallied 23 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in just 20 minutes of action. Amanda Hiltunen scored 18 points while Nicole Childress and Lindsay Riesbeck had 14 and 11 points, respectively. R-MC connected on 34-of-75 shots on the night and out rebounded the Hornets 48-35.

Lynchburg was paced by Kristina Darby who had 15 points. Caroline Wesley chipped in with 14 points of her own in a losing effort.

R-MC jumped out to a quick start behind Arial who scored 12 points in the first 4:03 of play to stake the Jackets to an early 14-4 advantage.

Randolph-Macon shot 52.6% percent from the floor in the first-half and took a 47-29 lead into the locker room after Salem Shaffer knocked down a three-pointer with 1:01left in the opening frame.

The Yellow Jackets pushed their lead to 25 early in the second-half when Shafer made a jumper with 4:48 gone in the second period, giving R-MC a 56-31 lead.

Randolph-Macon will be back in action Saturday when it will welcome HU for a 2:00 p.m. game. Prior to the game, R-MC will honor seniors Kristen Morgan and Salem Shaffer who will be playing in their final home game.

Prior to the Friday’s game with LC, R-MC retired former stand out Megan Silva’s No.11. A native of Glen Allen, Va. and a graduate of Hermitage High School, Silva rewrote both the school and Old Dominion Athletic Conference record books during her four years in Ashland.

The 2005-06 Honda Division III Female Athlete-of-the-Year, Silva became the first student-athlete to win the ODAC women’s basketball Player-of-the-Year award three times after leading the league and the nation in scoring with 23.0 points per game. She also led the ODAC in assists with 6.2 per contest and steals with 3.6 per game. For her efforts, Silva was named the 2006 National Player-of-the-Year by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), D3Hoops.com and DIII News. She also was the 2006 female winner of the Jostens Trophy, which recognizes excellence in Division III basketball, academics and community service.

In the classroom, Silva earned a 3.69 grade-point average while majoring in Business/Economics at Randolph-Macon. A Dean’s List student and R-MC honors program participant, she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa honor societies and served as the school newspaper’s business and advertising manager. Silva also shared her time as a volunteer, running basketball clinics for underprivileged children in the summer, working in the nursery of a church during services and providing individual basketball instruction to children. She was named a College Sports Information Directors (CoSIDA)/ESPN The Magazine second-team academic-all-district selection as a senior, and as a junior in 2005 was the ODAC Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Silva also received Randolph-Macon’s Susan B. de Nagy Award, which is presented each year to the school’s top senior female athlete for excellence in athletics, academics, leadership and sportsmanship. Silva capped her career by being recognized by the ODAC Board of Directors as the top female scholar-athlete in the ODAC for 2006.

For her career, Silva finished with more points (2,371), assists (700) and steals (446) than any male or female basketball player in ODAC history She is a four-time first-team all-conference, first-team all-state and First-Team All-South Region selection, as well as three-time Virginia State Player-of –the-Year and All-American selection.

During her time as a Yellow Jacket, Silva led R-MC to four straight seasons with 20 or more wins, a four-year overall record of 99-23 (81.0%) and ODAC record of 68-12 (85.0%), three conference championships and appearances in the NCAA Division III tournament, a National runner-up finish in the NCAAs in 2005 and the final eight in 2006, and rankings of #2 in the nation and #1 in the Division III South Region in both 2004-05 and 2005-06.

-Yellow Jackets-