Greenville, S.C. – Tierra Hodges scored a game-high 14 points and Grace van Rij followed with 10 to lead the Furman women's basketball team to an 81-28 victory over the Converse Valkyries in its home opener Wednesday evening inside Timmons Arena.

Furman improves to 2-4 on the season while Converse drops to 1-1 overall.

All 13 Paladins in uniform, including seven freshmen, scored in the contest led by the 14 from Hodges and 10 by van Rij.

Hodges concluded the game shooting 7-of-11 from the field to go with six rebounds, three assists and three steals. van Rij was 5-of-6 from the field and recorded three blocks. Evie DePetro and Aaliyah Irizarry-Perez led Furman defensively with a career-high seven rebounds each. Paraskevi Koilia led all players with seven assists while Tate Walters dished out a career-best five.

Lindsey Hardin, Ellen Nardella and Keyshuna Fair all scored a team-high five points for the Valkyries. Jordan Brown pulled down a team-leading seven rebounds.

Converse opened the game on a 7-0 run and would later hold a 12-6 advantage with 5:51 remaining in the first quarter. From there, the Paladins would hold the Valkyries scoreless for a stretch of 19:24 as they registered 40 consecutive points. The last basket of that run came with 6:41 to go in the third quarter on van Rij's layup. Furman held Converse scoreless throughout the entire second quarter on 0-of-12 shooting. The Valkyries were 1-for-13 shooting in the third quarter.

The Paladins took their largest lead of the game at the 8:04 mark of the fourth quarter when Greyson Boone's 3-pointer made the score 73-16.

The scoreless second quarter for Converse marked the second consecutive season in which Furman has held an opponent without a point during a period. During an 88-24 win over Bob Jones last season in Greenville, the Paladins kept the Bruins off the scoreboard for the entire fourth quarter.

Furman finished the game shooting 47.1 percent (32-of-68) from the field and limited the Valkyries to just 19.6 percent (10-of-51) overall. The Paladins held a 51-38 advantage in rebounds.

Furman led in points in the paint (46-14), points off turnovers (35-12), second chance points (12-5), fast break points (9-0) and bench points (47-14).

The Paladins travel to Athens, Ga. on Sunday, December 20 to face the Georgia Lady Bulldogs at 2 p.m. from Stegeman Coliseum.