Pregame Interview with Kiara Carter
Middletown, Pa - Penn State Harrisburg dropped a hard-fought contest to one of the best non-conference foes it's faced all year in Wilkes. The Lions put up a valiant fight before falling to the home team 87-79.
Wilkes came into the game with a record of 7-4 which included an 8 point win over a #21 nationally ranked University of Scranton in early December. Harrisburg came into the game 8-2 just off one of their best performances this season when they took down the SUNY IT Wildcats Thursday night 87-68.
Mercedes Copeland (Reading, Pa. / Reading) started the Lions off scoring the first two points of the game and played with force all night on way to her 21 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assist. The game stayed close for the first 10 minutes and was dead even at 24 a piece with 9:30 to go in the half.
Harrisburg found themselves down by 11 points due to 17-6 run that the Colonels put together with 3:06 until the break. The Lions were able to cut the deficit to seven and a score of 45-38 going into the half.
The second half was again back and forth, while Harrisburg slowly chipped away at the Wilkes lead. The lady Lions had the game down to 3 points with 12:21 to go. Unfortunately from that point on Wilkes kept the lead just out of being grabbed by a lion and had themselves up by 12 as the second half came down to the last minute.
Harrisburg's senior leader Steph Yetter (Thompsontown, Pa. / East Juniata) added the team high 11 rebounds and 7 more points to her All-time leading scoring total. Miranda Zeanchock (Carrolltown, Pa. / Cambria Heights) just missed her career high scoring an impressive 24 points.
The Lions won most of the statistical categories on the night, but unfortunately they also won the turnover game with 38 turnovers which Wilkes converted for 28 points. This would prove too much to overcome as they fell to Wilkes 87-79.
"The girls displayed consistent effort and played with great emotion, but unfortunately our turnovers caught up with us." According to Coach Patrick "We have asked our players to do two things on the court; play with aggression and make good decisions. We have been very successful in the first and now need to continue improving on the second. I am very proud of how we played tonight, we improved, we still have some work to do, but we are excited about it!
The lady Lions have a busy week ahead as they travel to Wells Saturday and Keuka Sunday for a back to back weekend alongside the men's team. Make sure to root on the lions by keeping an eye on the scores through Live stats as well as watch the website for our exclusive behind the scenes video interviews of the players all weekend.