The Maryland women’s basketball team, as it has to most of its nonconference opponents this season, dominated Towson in the first quarter Tuesday night. The Terps led, 22-10, after the opening period.

Early in the second quarter, though, coach Brenda Frese’s team broke the game open.

Maryland went on a 16-2 run in less than three minutes during the period, using relentless defense and a quick offense to stretch its lead to 27 points. From there, No. 4 Maryland coasted to a 97-63 win to move to 9-0 in 2016.

Center Brionna Jones and guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, the team’s senior leaders, led the run, combining to score 12 points during the stretch, but the highlight of the sequence came from freshman guard Destiny Slocum.

Towson was struggling to inbound the ball from under its own basket with about seven minutes left, so the Tigers resorted to a lobbing a pass to half court.

“Right before that, coach had gotten on us about how we came out flat,” Walker-Kimbrough said.

Slocum hustled and tipped the ball out of midair back the other way. Then, despite tripping over a Towson player, she chased the ball down just before went out of bounds. As she trampled into the crowd, she tossed the ball behind her back to Walker-Kimbrough, who caught it under the hoop.

Walker-Kimbrough converted the layup and went to the foul line as the crowd gave its loudest ovation of the night.

“That was the turning point, I thought, for the energy,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “From that point on we all brought the energy. You felt it from the bench, and you felt it from the crowd. That was a big play.”

Frese credited the team’s explosive run to increased defensive intensity and ball security.

“We’re pretty good when we’re not turning the ball over,” Frese said, “because we can score the basketball.”

The team did commit one turnover during the stretch, scored six buckets in the paint and three on the fast break.

After Slocum’s highlight play, the Xfinity Center crowd continued to roar as Jones left the court and received high fives from her team. With seven minutes to go in the second quarter, Jones had already scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds.

Towson didn’t reach 18 points until a minute and half after she left.

“It opens up everything when we play through [Jones],” Frese said. “We’re continuing to learn that.”

Jones scored the team’s first 12 points in the second quarter.

“Just credit to my teammates finding me when I was open,” Jones said of that scoring.

After what Frese deemed a sluggish start to the game, Maryland hit 14 of its 22 shots in the second period and went 3-for-5 from long range. The Terps outscored Towson by 15 points, its largest gap of any quarter, and went into halftime leading 56-29.

Walker-Kimbrough almost matched Jones with 16 points before intermission. Both players finished with 19 while playing less than 20 minutes. They combined to shoot 14 of 20 from the field, and Walker-Kimbrough made both of her 3-point tries.

“We talk about it all the time. They shoulder the load, they want the responsibility,” Frese said. “They consistently show up every single night.”