Emily Taylor needed just 74 seconds to light a fire under the John Carroll women's basketball team.

Her inspired play toward the end of the first half turned what had been a lackluster effort into a dominating one as the Blue Streaks rolled to an 88-66 victory over Penn State Behrend Monday afternoon at the DeCarlo Varsity Center.

JCU, ranked #25 in the latest d3hoops.com poll (dated December 16), played host to the winless Lions in the final non-conference game on the Blue Streaks' regular season schedule. The home squad got off to a fast start by taking an 8-2 lead, but back-to-back three pointers by Sadie Zielinski knotted the score at 8-8, and the Blue Streaks found themselves in a dog fight.

It was not until the Lions took their first lead at 23-21 on a pair of Ally Burke free throws at the 4:47 mark that the alarm sounded on the JCU sideline.

Taylor answered the call.

She knocked down consecutive three-point shots in a span of 27 seconds to give John Carroll a 27-23 lead, then assisted on a Beth Switzler lay-up to push the margin to six points with 3:56 remaining. After a Penn State Behrend foul that turned the ball over, she made yet another three-point field goal. In 74 seconds of elapsed game time, Taylor helped turn a two-point deficit into a nine point advantage as JCU led 32-23 with 3:23 left on the first half clock.

Taylor was just getting started. Following a Burke lay-up that stopped John Carroll's 11-0 run, Taylor answered with a jumper and then an assist on a lay-up by Katlyn Spahar that gave John Carroll a 36-25 lead entering the final minute of play in the first half. 

The Lions cut the JCU lead to seven points at the half (38-31), but the Blue Streaks used a 16-4 run in the opening five minutes of the second half to put the game out of reach. John Carroll led by as many as 29 points before settling on the 22-point final margin.

John Carroll improved to 10-1 on the season as Spahar (18), Taylor (17) and Meghan Weber (12) all reached double figures. The Blue Streaks also got tremendous contributions from the bench as Erin Mog (4-6, 8 points) and Jasmine Rogers (3-3, 6 points) helped the home team shoot 34-66 (.515) from the field for the game.

Penn State Behrend, which fell to 0-11, was paced by a game-high 30 points from Burke.