Olivia McCabe recorded her 11
th double-double of the season with game-highs of 19 points and 16 rebounds to help Pitt-Johnstown race out to a commanding 28-10 halftime lead on its way to a 65-55 PSAC victory over Clarion University, Saturday afternoon in the Sports Center. Pitt-Johnstown improved to 9-13 overall and 6-11 in the PSAC Western Division.
The Cats held Clarion to just 1-12 shooting in the first quarter and opened-up a 13-point lead.
Gabrielle Smith's free-throw made it 7-0 to start, before four straight baskets from McCabe, who recorded her double-double with eight minutes left in the quarter, closed out the quarter to give Pitt-Johnstown a 15-2 lead.
Pitt-Johnstown continued to build on the lead and pushed it out to 22-5 on McCabe's conventional 3-point play with 5:41 left in the half. After
Nicole Olkosky and
Maddie Shanahan each scored in the paint to increase it to 28-8, Clarion got a layup with eight seconds remaining from Yasmin Lewis to make it 28-10 at the break.
The Golden Eagles didn't go away and came out in the third quarter and narrowed the gap to 32-21 on a pair of Tracy Wiehe free-throws at 3:15. The Cats extended back out to 17 on four consecutive Olkosky free-throws 1:30 later and entered the fourth quarter, leading 43-29.
Clarion answered again. This time with a 16-6 run, capped by Jordan Bekelja's 3-pointer Wieh's bucket, to get to within four at 40-45. Pitt-Johnstown got it back out to eight on Shanahan's layup with 4:01 to play, and the Cats went on to hit 9-of-12 from the free-throw line in the final 1:16 to seal the 10-point victory.
Along with McCabe's 19 points and six rebounds, Pitt-Johnstown also got 10 points and four rebounds off the bench from
Tori Moreland and nine points and four rebounds from Smith. Olkosky finished with eight points and eight rebounds for the Cats.
McCabe currently stands in 28
th place on the Pitt-Johnstown All-Time Scoring List with 1,120 points and seventh on the All-Time Rebounding List with 777 rebounds.
Pitt-Johnstown, which held a 47-34 advantage on the glass, ended the day shooting 35.2% (19-54) from the field, and was able to overcome 1-14 shooting from 3-point range. The Cats were also 26-33 from the free-throw line. Clarion was held to 32.7% (18-55) from the floor, 4-14 from behind the 3-point arc, and 15-28 from the charity stripe.
Lewis double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Wiehe's 17 points and five rebounds led the way for Clarion, which fell to 7-16 overall and 2-16 in the PSAC West.
Pitt-Johnstown travels to a PSAC game at nationally-ranked Indiana (PA) on Wednesday, before returning home to host conference doubleheader with the men's team against California (PA), another nationally-ranked team, on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Sports Center.
