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By MATTHEW CROSS mcross@leader.net
Thursday, January 27, 2000 Page: 1B
SCRANTON – The Scranton women took a huge step closer to winning the
school’s third consecutive Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom League
championship with a 77-44 thrashing of second-place Allentown College on
Wednesday.
The Lady Royals (16-1 overall, 8-0 in the MAC) dominated the first half and
took a healthy 41-14 lead with aggressive defense and good execution on
offense. They held the Lady Centaurs (13-3, 5-3) to 24-percent shooting from
the field and no offensive rebounds at the break.
“I’m surprised and obviously pleased with the execution of my team in the
first half,” Scranton coach Mike Strong said. “For us to nail them like that
is pretty impressive. I mentioned (the rebound statistic) to them at halftime
and they cheered. We don’t often cheer at the half.”
Scranton cruised to an easy victory by controlling the action on both sides
of the ball. Kelly Halpin led the squad with 18 points, Jaime Eilbacher had 15
and Gillian McGovern had 12. Kate Corcoran led Allentown with 12 points.
The game shouldn’t have been so simple for Scranton, though.
Coming into the game, Allentown had a 10-game winning streak and is ranked
second in the region. Scranton has a 15-game streak and is No. 1, however, and
proved it.
Now the Lady Royals have six Freedom league games left, four of which are
against teams with a losing record. They also have a two-game lead on King’s
College, which is in second place at 6-2.
Strong said he challenged his team to be undefeated in conference play this
season, and the Lady Royals are well on their way. So what will it take to
finish unblemished?
“We saw it tonight,” Strong said. “We’ve got all the ingredients.”
Call Cross at 829-7127