Beaver's Season Ends With Loss To Penn State Hazleton

By: Evan Pinchot 

York, Pa -- The Penn State Beaver women's basketball team traveled to York for their first game in season's PSUAC playoffs. Beaver came in to this game looking to face off against Penn State Hazelton for a semi-final round matchup. The two teams faced off last season in the PSUAC championship, in which Beaver was able to pull out a last minute win to advance to the USCAA National Tournament. 

This game started off very slow for Beaver, as they were badly outplayed in the first quarter of play. For the first 8 minutes of play, Hazelton outscored Beaver 18-5 while as they made 10 trips to the free throw line. Beaver's sloppy play in this quarter put them out to a bad start, and they finished out the first down 23-11. The second quarter showed a much more focused and improved Beaver team, as they began chipping away and Hazelton's lead little by little. With just under a minute until halftime, Beaver had managed to bring the game to a 31-31 tie when just seconds later Hazelton managed to answer right back with a basket of their own. Going into halftime Beaver had fought back to bring the game to a 2 point deficit, trailing 33-31.

The second half of play started out just as the first half did, with Hazelton coming out looking dominant over Beaver in the third quarter. As Beaver shot a disappointing 29% in the third, the most hurtful thing Beaver did to themselves was sending Hazelton to the free throw line 18 times in the quarter. Of Hazelton's 34 points in the third, 15 came from free throws, while Beaver's struggles continued. Going into the fourth quarter, Beaver was down 67-47, a deficit that looked to be just too big for a struggling Beaver squad. The team came out slow once again, and as the deficit in this game grew wider and wider, the energy seemed to empty from Beaver's women as they saw their season slip away. As time ran out, Beaver's season was over as they fell for the final time this season by a final score of 96-61. 

Beaver ended their season with a loss to Penn State Hazelton, bringing their overall record to 17-9 on the year. The team finished with the regular season with number 2 seed heading into the playoffs and sadly will not have the chance to play for a fifth-straight PSUAC title this season. The team was led in this game by the efforts of Seniors Mason Depetro (Pittsburgh, PA / Cornell), who led the team with 15 points while adding 6 rebounds and 4 assists, and Cassandra Flowers (Pittsburgh, PA / Westinghouse), who finished with a 10 point-10 rebound double-double.