Box Score
READING, Pa. – The Elizabethtown College women's basketball team used 48 first half points and seven 3-pointers to build a 22-point halftime lead against Albright Saturday afternoon at Bollman Center. The Blue Jays needed almost all of that advantage to hold off the relentless Lions in the second half of their 76-67 Commonwealth Conference victory.
Megan Strohman and her E-town teammates took a 14-all game with 11:54 to play in the opening half and turned it into a 22-point halftime lead by outscoring Albright (6-14, 2-9 CC) 34-12 over the remainder of the period. Strohman found her stroke from long distance as she connected on four 3-pointers in the half. Stephanie Ellwood, Nadine Yunginger and Kendra Beittel followed their senior captain's lead. Each found twine once from beyond the arc, and the Blue Jays (12-8, 4-6 CC) stepped up their play at the defensive end as well in holding the Lions to just 11 field goals in the first 20 minutes —all two-pointers.
As lethal as E-town was from downtown in the first half, it was the inside play of Kaity Snyder and Teanna Ziegler that gave the team a second-half pick-me-up and allowed the Jays to keep its double figure advantage for most of the half.
Ziegler, in her third game back from a knee injury that forced her to miss seven contests in the middle of the season, scored nine points and grabbed three rebounds in 21 solid minutes. Snyder, much like she's done all season, grinded out a strong 10-point, seven-rebound effort.
Albright, which didn't hit a 3-pointer in the first half, came alive in the final stanza. Thanks to 15 points from Jessica McGinness and 10 from Jenny Knoebel the Lions were able to claw their way back into the game. They finally slashed the deficit under 10 with 3:13 to play on a layup by Knoebel.
McGinness put even more of a scare into the visitors when her basket and free throw with 1:55 remaining shrunk the E-town lead to just four. The Blue Jays responded, though, getting a Ziegler layup on their next offensive possession to make it 70-64 with 98 seconds to play.
McGinness would get called for traveling soon thereafter and Snyder answered with another bucket to make it 72-64. Yunginger would salt away the game from the free throw line. The sophomore from New Holland missed front end of 1-and-1, but got the offensive board and proceeded to sink her next four attempts at the line, as E-town went back in front by double digits.
The Blue and Gray cooled off considerably from the floor following their first half shooting display. They were just 9-of-32 (28-percent) overall and 1-of-13 (7.7-percent) from 3-point range. The Jays finished 8-of-29 from downtown, while Albright was 4-of-17.
Not to be lost in E-town's victory was the strong play of freshman Kendra Beittel. The Hempfield graduate scored 10 points in the first half and six more in the second as she came within a point of her career-high. Beittel was took just five shots in the game –hitting two-, but she was an impressive 10-of-12 from the charity stripe. She also handed out four assists, tied for the team lead with Yunginger.
Ellwood finished with nine points for E-town, while Yunginger had seven.
McGinness led the Lions with 21 points. She was aided by 12 from Knoebel and 10 from Meghan Boyle. The Lions had issues with turnovers, committing 20 of them on the afternoon.
Elizabethtown will face another Commonwealth Conference road test Wednesday when it heads to Lycoming for a 6 p.m. start.