DOYLESTOWN (Pa.) – The Delaware Valley University women's basketball team overcame a fourth quarter deficit en route to a 66-57 non-conference victory over Penn State Harrisburg, giving head coach Laura Hogan her 300th career victory, on Friday night.
The Aggies improved to 7-6 overall and dropped the Nittany Lions to 4-5.
Harrisburg raced out to a 15-4 lead after six and half minutes of play behind three treys. The Aggies were 2-for-10 from the field in that stretch. DelVal closed the gap to eight, 22-14, at the end of the first quarter. Haley Keenan led the way with six points and Alexis Wright followed with four to go with four rebounds in the first.
DelVal began to chip away in the second with a 10-2 run that spanned over six minutes of play and saw five different Aggies score two points and make it a two-point game, 26-24, with 2:17 left in the half.
The Nittany Lions went on to score the final three points to close the half and take a 29-24 lead into the break.
Jenna Schiessl got the Aggies started in the third with a trey and Wright followed with a layup inside to tie the game at 29-29. Moments later, three consecutive transition layups from Keenan gave DelVal its first lead of the game at 40-35 with 2:25 left in the third. However, the Nittany Lions fired back with a 10-3 run to close the stanza and retake the lead, 45-43, headed into the fourth. Keenan and Jenna Schiessl combined for 15 points in the third to lead the Aggies.
After Harrisburg scored the first five points of the fourth to extend its lead to seven, DelVal ripped off an 11-0 run over the next 4:47 of play behind five points from Keenan, four from Wright, and a pair from Aubrey Ennis. That gave the home team a four-point lead with three minutes left in regulation.
Consecutive layups from the Nittany Lions knotted the game at 56-56, but another layup from Keenan put the Aggies back in front with 1:26 to play and they never looked back.
Keenan scored 10 in the final 90 seconds of regulation, including 6-for-6 from the charity stripe, to close out the milestone victory. She finished with a game-high 31 points to go with six rebounds, three steals, and three assists. Taylor Richardson was a star on the defensive end as she drew five offensive fouls and hauled in a game-high 12 rebounds to go with four steals and three blocked shots. Wright pitched in with 13 pionts and seven boards while Schiessl and Maisie Neuber contributed seven points apiece. Neuber added five assists, three steals and three boards to her totals.
For Coach Hogan, the winningest coach in program history, the win marked another milestone in the already illustrious career at DelVal that includes her time as a Hall of Fame player on the court and 28 seasons behind the bench of her alma mater.
The Aggies will face Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom teams the rest of the way, beginning with a road contest at Misericordia on Saturday, January 7 at 1 p.m.
