EWING, N.J. – The TCNJ women's basketball team put itself right in the NJAC regular-season title chase with an emphatic 69-52 victory over Montclair State on Saturday.

Julia Setaro racked up 20 points and Sydney Blum posted a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Lions (13-7, 8-5), who snapped a brief two-game mini-skid in resounding fashion. With the result, TCNJ moved into a tie for third in the conference standings, two games back of first-place Kean, and solidified its own playoff standing against a team with an identical league record coming into the day.

After two straight losses, the Lions were eager to get off to a fast start. They did just that, jumping all over the Red Hawks and scoring 10 of the game's first 12 points. Nina Branchizio started it with a 3-pointer – the 100^th of her career – and a trapping defense did the rest, leading to multiple Montclair State turnovers and a basket by Kaitlyn Deiter that made it 10-2 less than three minutes after tip.

TCNJ put the Red Hawks in a double-digit hole shortly thereafter as Setaro got a lefty scoop to spin around the rim and drop for a 15-4 lead just shy of the midway point of the opening quarter.

Montclair State (10-10, 7-6) found its footing and got within 17-16 on a three-point play from Nickie Carter to open the second stanza.

Myah Hourigan-Hutton put her stamp on the game quickly, setting up fellow rookie Katie Fricker for a back-door bucket with a pinpoint pass and connecting from the right wing for a 3-pointer that made it 29-22 with 4:40 to go in the frame.

Leading 29-24, TCNJ finished the first half with a flourish. Setaro drained back-to-back step-back triples – the first bouncing off the front rim and the backboard before dropping through the net – and Blum buried a transition trey of her own to cap a 9-0 run in the span of just over a minute. With the Red Hawks going scoreless for the last 4:25 of the period, the Lions commanded a 14-point advantage at the break (38-24).

Montclair State shot 50.0 percent in the first quarter (6-for-12), but the turnovers began to pile up – nine in the first half alone – and the Lions took ruthless advantage. TCNJ turned those miscues into 13 points on the other end. Combined with a huge advantage on the glass (11 offensive rebounds and 11 second-chance points) and beyond the arc (5-for-11 from 3 to just 1-of-8 for MSU), it all added up to a runaway for the hosts.

Despite a slow start to the second half, the Red Hawks got no closer than 11 before 3-pointers by Branchizio and Fricker extended the Lions lead to 47-30 at the 2:26 mark of the third.

TCNJ squandered a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter of the teams' first meeting, but there would be no such collapse the second time around. Blum's third 3 of the day, followed by a bucket from Deiter, pushed the margin out to 20 (52-32) late in the third, and the home side went up by as many as 21 (60-39) with 7:35 left.

The Red Hawks had one last run in them, scoring 11 straight to get within 60-50 before Setaro knocked down a huge corner 3 off a dish by Izzy Leazier to keep the red-clad visitors at bay.

Montclair State managed only three 3-pointers on 14 attempts on Saturday. Carter led the way with 21 points and Madelyn McCrea added 14, but their teammates combined to go just 6-for-23 from the field.

TCNJ harassed the Red Hawks into 22 turnovers, cashing those into a whopping 29 points. Setaro led the way with four steals, while Leazier and Fricker swiped three each.

Blum was 3-for-4 from long range en route to her dozen markers, and Branchizio matched her with 12 of her own.

Leazier was all over the box score with five points, six rebounds, five assists, and three steals.

The Lions head up to Kean on Wednesday to battle the first-place Cougars in a rematch of last year's NJAC quarterfinal upset.