Beaver rolls past Scranton, 69-36, for back-to-back conference road wins

By: Matylda Zamudio

Dunmore, Pa.— Penn State Beaver captured the second win of back-to-back PSUAC conference road matches against Penn State Scranton on Friday night after a dominant 41-point second half performance.

Sophomore guard Diamond Thomas (Pittsburgh/Carlynton) and freshman guard Emily Keener (Utica) led the scoring for Beaver tonight, earning a game-high 15 points each.

Senior point guard Ally Rudolph (Marion/Albert Gallatin) threw down 11 points of her own coming off the bench. Senior USCAA First Team All-American, 2017-18 PSUAC All-Conference First Team and 2017-18 PSUAC Player of the Year forward Brittany Jackson (Turtle Creek/Westinghouse) was a force in the paint, earning a game-high 11 rebounds.

1st half: Keener hit an early 3-pointer to bolster a 9-0 run by Beaver down to the 14:49 mark. At 13:20, Scranton finally got on the board with a jump shot, but Rudolph answered 21 seconds later, launching a shot from behind the arch for Beaver to gain a 10-point lead over Scranton (12-2). At 12:07, Rudolph scored her second of back-to-back 3-pointers for Beaver (15-3). Halfway through the first, Jackson followed up her teammates by scoring a 3-point shot of her own, building Scranton's deficit to 17 points (20-3). While Scranton fought back to cut Beaver's lead down to 11 points and then down to 10 with two and a half minutes to go, but Beaver's defense played tough and held Scranton to only 14 points in total, ending the first half with a 14-point lead (28-14).

2nd half: Beaver controlled the tempo in the second half, forging a 6-0 nothing run in the early minutes and putting Scranton in a 20-point deficit at the 18:05 mark with the help of two back-to-back layups by Thomas (34-14). As the second preceded, the Lady Lions kept the momentum up on both sides of the floor, as the Scranton players had no answer to Beaver continuing to widen the lead and holding them to low scoring. But a foul by Scranton before the clock ran out sent Keener to the free throw line for two shots, to which she made both and gave Beaver's its largest lead of the night, 33 points, and bringing down Scranton with a final score of 69-36 to secure the team's second conference win of the season.

Box Score Highlights: Beaver outscored Scranton 41-22 in the second half. Beaver outrebounded Scranton 42-31 for the game. Beaver also outscored Scranton 17-3 on points off turnovers, 18-2 on points in the paint, 21-5 in second-chance points and 29-1 on points off the bench. Beaver had only 14 turnovers to Scranton's 22 turnovers.

After tonight's victory against Scranton, the Lady Lions are on a three-game winning streak and hold a 2-0 record in the PSUAC standings as well as improve to 6-1 overall in the regular season.

The Lady Lions are making their presence felt early in the conference and return to action tomorrow, Dec. 1 for Saturday's road game against conference rival Penn State Wilkes-Barre. Game time begins at 1 p.m.