Lions Stumble At Beaver

MONACA, Pa. – The Penn State Brandywine women's basketball team closed out its weekend road trip to western Pennsylvania with setback at undefeated Penn State Beaver, falling 86-66 Saturday afternoon.

After a slow start to the first quarter, Brandywine rallied from 10 points down with baskets from five different scorers to get within one after 10 minutes of play.

Beaver used a trio of three-pointers from Emily Keener to build a 29-20 lead midway through the second period, while a free throw with eight seconds remaining sent the hosts into halftime with a double-figure lead.

The Lions' deficit grew as Beaver scored the first seven points of the second half, but a triple by Madison D'Ambrosio (Springfield, Pa./Springfield) and two free throws from Nikki Velez (Gloucester, N.J./Gloucester City) brought the margin back to 12. Five minutes later, three consecutive Brandywine baskets, capped by Ally Giannakarios' (Brookhaven, Pa./Sun Valley) jumper made the deficit single digits.

However, Beaver outscored Brandywine 10-5 during the final 3:47 of the third stanza and Brandywine could not get the deficit lower than 11 points during the final 10 minutes.

Velez, who broke the team's career scoring record Friday night, added 21 points to her mark and collected five steals and four rebounds. D'Ambrosio paired 10 points with 12 rebounds for a double-double, while Amanda Floyd (Glenolden, Pa./Interboro) tallied 12 points and Dairayonna Stewart-Harold sank 4-of-6 shots and collected 10 points.

Brandywine shot 41 percent from the field, while Beaver connected on 51 percent of its shots. The Lions were marred by 6-of-19 shooting at the free throw line.

After playing four of its first five games in 2020 on the road, Brandywine (10-6, 7-3 PSUAC) will return home to face Penn State New Kensington Friday night at 6:00 pm.