CLARION, Pa. – A disastrous second quarter proved too much for the Slippery Rock University women's basketball team to overcome in a 70-62 loss to Clarion University Wednesday night in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division competition at Tippin Gymnasium in Clarion, Pennsylvania.
Slippery Rock (9-16, 6-13 PSAC West) led by 10 points with eight minutes to play in the second quarter, but Clarion (14-11, 11-8) closed the half on a 24-7 run to take a lead that it would hold for the entirety of the second half en route to the victory.
Brooke Hinderliter and
Morgan Henderson paced The Rock with 15 and 11 points, respectively. The pair also combined for 11 rebounds with Henderson pulling in six rebounds and Hinderliter grabbing five.
C.C. Dixon chipped in eight points,
Mallory Heinle had a team-best seven rebounds and five points while
Sierra Fordham passed scored six points to round out the contributions by SRU's starting lineup.
Krista Pietropola came off the bench to score eight points, grab seven rebounds, block one shot and make one steal. She was an efficient 3-for-6 from the field overall and 2-for-5 from 3-point range. Fellow reserve
LeeAnn Gibson matched a season-high with seven rebounds to go with seven points.
Slippery Rock started the night as the aggressors and quickly jumped out to a 6-3 lead through the opening three minutes of competition. Clarion countered The Rock's early run with a 7-2 spurt of its own to pull ahead 10-8 with three minutes to play in the first quarter, but SRU closed the period by scoring eight consecutive points, five of which came from Pietropola, to take a 16-10 lead into the second quarter.
The Rock successfully attacked the paint in the opening quarter as SRU scored 10 points in the paint in the first quarter. Defensively, SRU forced Clarion to commit four turnovers and shoot just 28.4 percent from the field in the opening 10 minutes.
SRU proceeded to stretch its lead out to a game-high 10 points at 20-10 thanks to four straight points from Hinderliter to begin the second quarter. However, The Rock's offensive attack faltered over the final eight minutes of the quarter as SRU managed to score just seven points while Clarion found its stride with seven successful field goals in 15 attempts and a perfect 8-for-8 showing from the foul line on the way to scoring 24 of the quarter's final 31 points to take a 34-27 lead into the halftime break.
Slippery Rock kept the game close through the duration of the second half and even cut Clarion's lead down to five points or less on five seperate occasions, but could never quite make a final push to retake the lead in the final 20 minutes. Clarion missed five of its 15 free throw attempts in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter, but Slippery Rock was unable to take advantage of CU's struggles at the foul line and the Golden Eagles managed to hang on for the eight-point victory.
As a team, Slippery Rock shot 32.4 percent (22-of-68) from the field overall, 20 percent (3-of-15) from 3-point range and a nearly perfect 83.3 percent (15-of-18) from the free throw line. SRU held Clarion, which entered the game averaging 8.2 made 3-pointers per game, to just five successful triples on 15 attempts. SRU also held a 45-41 edge in rebounds.
Delrika Jones-Carey led four Golden Eagles in double figures with 18 points. Tyra Polite just missed out on a double-double with 12 points and eight rebounds. For the game, Clarion shot 41.8 percent (23-of-55) from the field, 33.3 percent (5-of-15) from long range and 59.4 percent (19-of-32) from the free throw line.
Slippery Rock will close out the home portion of its 2016-17 schedule Saturday against Gannon University at Morrow Field House. Saturday will be Senior Day at The Rock as well as SRU's annual Play4Kay game to spread breast cancer awareness. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m.
