Women Crack Top 10 For First Time Ever in Weekly USCAA Poll
The PSUGA Women's Basketball team cracked the top 10 in the USCAA poll for the first time in program history moving up one spot to the #10 position on Wednesday. The move comes after a 2-0 week including one of the biggest wins in school history when they beat Beaver 62-59 last week.
McKeesport, PA. – The Penn State Greater Allegheny Women’s Basketball team’s (15-9, 11-3) Cinderella season just keeps on going in 2018-2019. The United States Collegiate Athletic Association released their weekly top 20 poll on Wednesday and the PSUGA Women have cracked the top ten for the first time in program history finishing #10 in the country, one spot up from their 11th place finish last week.
The jump comes after one of the team’s biggest wins in program history when they beat #7 Penn State Beaver 62-59 last week breaking a nine-year losing streak against them and at the time kept PSUGA’s hopes of getting the #1 seed alive. However, after PSU-Beaver defeated PSU-DuBois 81-58 on Wednesday, they locked up the #1 seed and PSUGA will have the #2 seed.
PSUGA picked up it’s second win of the week on Saturday when they honored their lone senior Andrea Burroughs (New Rochelle, NY./New Rochelle HS) with an 87-32 win that helped them tie the single season win record for PSUGA Women’s Basketball. Kiya Blair (Pittsburgh, Pa./Carrick HS) had a breakout game scoring a career high 17 points helping her team pick up the win.
PSUGA entered this season with a goal of making the PSUAC playoffs. Now that they have accomplished that goal, they are looking to take it one step further and make a run for the programs first ever PSUAC Championship. Head coach Chrissy French and her team are looking to take things one game at a time as they get set for their final regular season game on the road against PSU-Fayette on Friday.
The catalysts for this turn around season have been the top two scorers Tina Clybourn (Pittsburgh, PA./Brashear HS) and Teaira Hartley (East Stroudsburg, PA./East Stroudsburg North HS). Clybourn has had a career year nearly doubling her point total from a season ago and ranking third in the PSUAC with 360 points in 24 games. Hartley has provided that veteran leadership that has been lacking the last couple seasons. She is second on the team with 291 points and leads the conference with 124 assists.
The PSUGA Women’s Basketball team looks to finish out the regular season on a high note when they travel to Penn State Fayette on Friday at 6 p.m. looking to keep the momentum going as they head towards the playoffs.