CALIFORNIA (March 1) – The California (PA) women's basketball team featured balanced scoring and held a sizable rebounding advantage on Wednesday night while claiming a 70-62 win over Edinboro in the quarterfinals of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Tournament.
With the victory, the Vulcans improve to 19-10 overall behind a 12-2 record at home. Cal advances to face West Chester – top seed from the PSAC East – in the semifinals of the league tournament on Saturday, March 4, in Erie, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Fighting Scots finish the season with a 17-12 mark while making a 13th-consecutive appearance in the PSAC Tournament.
Junior
Halle Herrington (Philipsburg, Pa./Philipsburg-Osceola) scored a team-high 20 points behind three-of-five from beyond the arc and seven-of-seven from the free-throw line. She also tallied three rebounds while playing all 40 minutes on Wednesday. Herrington has scored at least 20 points four times this season while averaging a career-high 12.9 points per game.
Senior
Rajah Fink (Dover, Pa./Dover) and sophomore
Allycia Harris (Wilkes-Barre, Pa./Elmer L. Meyers) both recorded a double-double in the victory. Fink finished with 19 points and 14 rebounds (four offensive), while Harris posted 11 points and a career-high 16 rebounds (six offensive) despite battling foul trouble. Fink, who now leads the PSAC with 14 double-doubles, became only the second Cal player in the last 11 years to collect at least 300 rebounds in a season.
Senior
Ciaira Loyd (Scranton, Pa./Scranton) finished with 12 points, three rebounds and eight assists on Wednesday. She leads the PSAC this year with a staggering 200 assists, as she is first player in school history to reach the milestone since Megan Storck in the 2003-04 campaign.
Loyd made a pair of three-pointers in the opening three-plus minutes of the game, as Cal held an 8-5 lead with 6:41 left in the first quarter. The Fighting Scots later scored six of eight points to take a 13-12 lead at the 2:51-mark. The Vulcans countered with a 7-3 rally that was started with a trey by Herrington before Cal held a 19-17 lead at the end of the quarter. Both teams were held scoreless for almost four minutes at the start of the second quarter before Edinboro posted a 9-4 run to claim a 26-23 lead with 2:31 left before the break. The Vulcans then responded with a 10-5 rally behind eight points from Herrington to take a 33-31 lead with 45 seconds remaining. Edinboro made a layup in the final seconds of the second quarter, as the score was tied 33-33 at halftime.
Cal raced out to a 39-35 lead in the opening four minutes of the third quarter before Edinboro tied the score at 39-39 with 4:24 left in the quarter. The teams traded points for the remainder of the quarter with the Vulcans maintaining a 46-44 lead. Edinboro tied the game for the final time on its opening possession of the fourth quarter before Cal mounted a 9-2 rally to take a 55-48 lead on a layup by Harris at the 6:08-mark. The Fighting Scots cut the deficit to three points multiple times in the final minutes with the final time being at 63-60 with 43 seconds left to play. Cal then sealed the victory by making seven-of-eight attempts from the free-throw line.
The Vulcans finished the game shooting 39.7 percent (25-of-63) from the floor after making over 60 percent in the fourth quarter. Cal also converted 71.4 percent (15-of-21) from the free-throw line. Meanwhile, the Fighting Scots shot at a 39.3 clip (24-of-61) from the field and went 10-of-17 (58.8 percent) from the charity stripe. Cal held a sizeable 46-32 rebounding advantage behind 15 offensive rebounds, including a combined 10 by Fink and Harris.
Junior Rana Elhusseini scored a game-high 31 points on 12-of-19 shooting and added seven rebounds, two assists and three steals. Senior Bella Burrelli finished with 16 points on 7-of-13 from the floor and four rebounds, while sophomore Hayley Sims was held to just two points after scoring a combined 46 points in the previous two meeting this season.
Cal will face West Chester in the semifinals of the PSAC Tournament on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Golden Rams, which have won 15-straight games, are the top rebounding team in the league and rank second in the conference in field-goal percentage.
