espnW Women's Basketball

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Maryland coach Brenda Frese didn't have much to complain about after watching the fifth-ranked Terrapins open the season with a blowout victory.

Tianna Hawkins had 18 points and 10 rebounds, Alicia DeVaughn contributed 15 points and 11 boards, and Maryland cruised past in-state foe Mount St. Mary's 88-47 on Friday night.

"I really liked how we came out ready to play. The energy was fantastic," Frese said. "I thought we did a terrific job sharing the basketball tonight, just really unselfish with our play. I'm really excited about the dominance of our post players. All three of them were really, really good."

Alyssa Thomas had 14 points and seven rebounds for the Terrapins, who led by 25 at halftime and coasted to the finish. Maryland has four starters back from a team that last season won the Atlantic Coast Conference and reached the final eight in the NCAA tournament.

Maryland finished with a 54-25 rebounding advantage, shot 56 percent and had 25 assists. Hawkins, a 6-foot-3 senior, went 8 for 11 from the floor and notched her 25th career double-double.

"Just some really positive things to build on here after our first game," Frese concluded.

Frese had to dig deep to list any negatives.

"You saw our zone needs some work and rebounding out of it," she offered. "We tried to work on a little bit of our press. And coming out and sustaining high levels of energy for 40 minutes."

The Terrapins could be forgiven for losing their focus a bit in the second half with the outcome already determined. There might be games in which Maryland will be pressed to excel for 40 minutes, but this sure wasn't one of them.

Kayla Grossett scored 17 for the Mountaineers (0-1), who shot 29 percent from the field simply didn't have the height or speed to compete with the Terrapins.

"I thought we got some of the shots we wanted," coach Bryan Whitten said. "We didn't make them."

And when the Mountaineers missed, one of the Terps was usually there to collect the rebound.

"If you look at the box score, they won it where they should have won it. They won it inside," Whitten said.

The Mount fell to 0-17 against ACC schools, including 0-5 versus Maryland.

"You get to see how the other half lives and you get to see the difference in the athleticism," Whitten said. "They're obviously very, very talented. And they're very unselfish."

Hawkins scored 14 in the first half, and the Terrapins limited the Mountaineers to 1-for-12 shooting from 3-point range in taking a 48-23 lead.

The Mountaineers' only lead was 2-0. It was 6-all before Thomas hit a jumper, Hawkins added two layups and Laurin Mincy capped the 8-0 run with a basket from the baseline.

After the lead dwindled to 18-14, DeVaughn made three layups during a 12-2 spurt that put Maryland up by 14. Minutes later, Katie Rutan connected from beyond the arc, freshman Malina Howard made a layup and Hawkins sank two at the foul line for a 37-18 advantage.

Rutan, a junior transfer from Xavier, made both of Maryland's 3-pointers. Mincy had five assists as the starting point guard in place of Brene Moseley, who tore her ACL on Oct. 21 and is out for the year.

"I think I did pretty well," Mincy said. "There are still a lot of things I'd like to improve on, but we shared the ball pretty well and got out in transition."