The Slippery Rock University women’s basketball team (9-13 overall, 5-13 PSAC) saw its two-game win streak come to a end at Edinboro University (17-6 overall, 14-5 PSAC) Wednesday, dropping the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-West matchup 79-56.
Slippery Rock was able to keep the game close with Edinboro approaching the halftime mark, but Edinboro went on a 10-4 run to end the first half up 33-23. The Rock was outscored by 12 points in the second half.
“Edinboro is one the best teams in country,” Rock head coach Bobby McGraw said. “That team is built to win a national championship and I do not want to take anything away from what they have accomplished.”
McGraw expressed that his team had a big difficulty in handling Edinboro’s junior center Aignee Freeland, who finished the game with 29 points and eclipsed the 1,000 point career mark Wednesday. Fighting Scot Valarie Majewski also scored 23 points as she and Freeland combined to score 65 percent of Edinboro’s points.
Despite being outscored by the Fighting Scots in each half, SRU was able to improve its shooting percentage to 46.4 percent in the second half after shooting just 28.6 percent in the first.
Junior guard Taylor Siggers led the Rock with a team high 18 points, shooting 7-16 from the field with two made three pointers. It was her third consecutive game scoring at least 17 points.
“As far as getting to the rim, Taylor is one of the best guards in the league,” McGraw said. “She’s a slasher and scorer. We challenged her at halftime because she was only 2-8 from the field and we told her we couldn’t have that in the second half. She stepped it up in the second by shooting 5-8 but unfortunately we couldn’t get anyone else to follow her and help take over.”
Senior forward D’Asia Chambers scored nine points for SRU while contributing seven rebounds. Junior guard Breanna Gross and freshman guard Shannon Jack also scored seven points each. Junior guard Erica Aiello helped the Rock’s offense with assists and junior forward Megan Hardiman grabbed six rebounds.
Junior center Sorriyah Ranger played a season-high of 20 minutes in the contest. Ranger recorded three blocks.
Despite the loss, Slippery Rock is still on the hunt for the final playoff spot in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament as the sixth and final team to represent the PSAC-Western Division. In fact, the Rock did not lose ground to the University of Pitt-Johnstown (9-13 overall, 6-12 PSAC) who currently own the sixth spot in PSAC-West and were unable to stop California University of Pennsylvania in a 79-64 loss Wednesday night.
The Rock has four games remaining on its schedule, and will host Seton Hill (11-13 overall, 7-11 PSAC) Saturday afternoon at Morrow Field-House. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m.
“Plain and simple, if we lose on Saturday we are in serious trouble,” McGraw said. “It’s a must-win game for us and we aren’t shying away from that fact.”
