Lady Lions Defeat Apprentice in an Overtime Thriller

By: Evan Pinchot

The Penn State Beaver women's basketball team took on Apprentice College, winning 71-67 in overtime.

The Beaver girls come into this game with an 0-1 record after having lost their first game to a very good point park team. The team hadn't looked bad in their first loss, and they look to build off of their first performace coming into another tough matchup against Apprentice.

The game started off sloppy for Beaver, as the first quarter of play was plagued with turnovers and just sloppy ball handling that ended up with Apprentice taking ahold of both the momentum of the game and the lead. As the second quarter started Beaver was down 18-9 and Apprentice quickly widened their lead. As the quarter went on, Beaver started to get fired up and with a few good shots they brought the score to 31-22 going into the half.

The second half showed an entirely different team for Beaver, as the team really sharpened their passing and cut down on their turnovers in their attempt to come back from what seemed like a big lead for Apprentice. In the third quarter the team really showed up on defense, slowing down the Apprentice offense allowing Beaver to mount a comeback that brought them down 7 to start the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter started with Beaver carrying in a lot of momentum from the third quarter. The girls really fought hard in this quarter, and with a brilliant offensive performance from a handful of Beaver players the girls sent the game into overtime with a score of 60-60. Beaver came into overtime very confident, eventually winning in a nail biter by a final score of 67-71.

Beaver improved their record to 1-1 today after winning an exciting game against Apprentice. Beaver has proved that they are full of talent and can take over a game at any point. The team was lead in this game by the efforts of three girls: Sophomore Mia Mattes (Bethel Park, PA / Bethel Park), who scored a team high 19 points, Freshman Rachael Cummings (Evans City, PA / Our Lady of Sacred Heart), who scored 15 points off of the bench to help lead the teams fourth quarter comeback, and Senior Cassandra Flowers (Pittsburgh, PA / Westinghouse), who registered a double-double with 11 points and 18 rebounds. The girls will return to action next against Carlow on Sunday, November 20, at home. Game time is set for 3 pm.