Box Score
Box Score
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – True freshman Jasmen Clark drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer, lifting West Chester University to a thrilling 62-59 non-league women’s basketball victory over host University of the Sciences inside Morgan Arena Monday evening.
Clark collected the inbounds pass from senior Meghan Kerrigan and calmly nailed the biggest shot of her three-game college career. West Chester called timeout with 1.3 seconds left after Alexandra Lennon came up with an offensive rebound following a scrum on the floor for the ball.
“We were looking to get the ball to (Lennon) on the inbounds,” Kane explained. “But, I told Meghan, ‘You’ll just have to get it to one of the others, if ‘Sticks’ isn’t open.’ They doubled (Lennon), so Jaz was open in the corner.”
West Chester (3-0) led for just 3:14 of the contest, including just 41 seconds of the second half, but put itself in position to steal the victory thanks to back-to-back buckets from Ambreelinne Ortman down the stretch. “A.O.” sank a 3-pointer with 2:24 to play and then followed up that with a layup with 1:39 on the clock to stake the Rams to a 59-57 advantage – its first lead of the game since 11:21 of the first half.
Science’s Carolyn Edwards hit a jumper with just under one minute remaining to knot the score at 59 for the ninth time in the back-and-forth tilt. Clark missed a layup with 28 seconds left, and the Devils (2-4) called a timeout to set up for one final shot. However, Lennon blocked her third shot of the game, and Clark made up for her misfire previously by stealing the ball with 24 ticks left.
Fellow freshman Dallas Ely missed a jumper with little over one second left, and Lennon dove on the loose ball as her teammates called timeout to give WCU one last shot at the basket.
“The shot was as flat as could be. I didn’t think it had a prayer of going in,” Kane recollected. “The ball hit the front of the rim, took this really high bounce, and came down through. Thank God the 30-second shot clock wasn’t where the ball took that high bounce. Otherwise, it would have been whistled dead.”
Lennon’s three blocked shots on the evening tied the school record for career blocks with 212. Gina Tophoney blocked that many shots from 1995-99. Ortman finished with a team-high 18 points while Ely posted 10 from the starting lineup.
West Chester’s bench accounted for 25 points on the night, led by Kendall Benovy’s seven – none bigger than her pair of free throws with 2:24 to play that evened the score at 57-apiece. Benovy finished 5 of 6 from the charity stripe Monday.
The Golden Rams are off until Saturday when they open conference play against California (Pa.) at 1 p.m. inside Hollinger Field House. Sunday, Indiana (Pa.) comes calling to finish out the PSAC crossover opener.
