Harris Enters Single-Season Record Books as Albright Ends Year With Loss at Etown

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By Jimmy McCumber

The Albright College women's basketball team ended its 2012-13 season with a 60-53 loss, Saturday at Elizabethtown.

Freshman Kelecia Harris was 11-of-13 from the floor and finished with 22 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks. Senior Kari Ludy added a team-high four assists in her final collegiate game.

Ludy went over the top to Harris to open the scoring, and Albright led 6-2 after a good post move by Meghan Boyle.

Taylor Kreider answered for Elizabethtown, and the Blue Jays soon converted a fast break to open up a 12-8 advantage. Harris broke the 8-0 run with a basket underneath.

Kristi McFadden found Harris again to make it 12-10 Blue Jays, and Boyle's bank shot kept the Lions close at 18-14. Again the hosts went on a run however, this time 9-0, capped by Rachel Forjan's three from the left side.

Harris answered again, and then blocked a Kreider shot before feeding Jessica Venturelli for a three from the right corner to make it 27-19 Etown. Albright would trail 35-23 at the break; Harris was 5-for-5 with two blocks in the opening period.

Albright shot 56.3% (9-for-16) before halftime, but the Blue Jays took 18 more field goal attempts in the half. A large number of those were due to 18 Lion turnovers, as the Red and White also held a 14-11 rebounding advantage at the break.

Venturelli's jumper made it 42-31 Elizabethtown early in the second half. Harris was 8-for-8 on the day after posting up off an inbounds pass to make it 53-41.

With 4:33 to play Harris finished a put-back and was fouled, missing the free throw but cutting the gap to single-digits at 55-47. McFadden drove the lane off the press break to keep that deficit, at 57-49.

Ludy executed a nice pick-and-roll with Harris, and despite another missed and-one chance, had the Lions close at 58-51. The Lions got the ball back and fed Harris underneath, but she missed for just the second time all game with 1:18 left to play.

The Lions challenged a pair of school single-season shooting records at the conclusion of the game. Harris' field goal percentage of  59.6% shatters the record of 50.5% set by Jen Houser in 1995-96. Tara Sabotchick's three-point percentage of 45.2% would also have broken teammate Amanda Tiritilli's school record, but fell short of the minimum attempts required.

Harris' 57 total blocks and 2.28 blocks per game are both second all-time at Albright, and her 243 rebounds place her third-best in the school single-season record books.

Albright concludes its season with a record 11-14, 7-11, a five-victory improvement from last season with a still-young team. Elizabethtown (14-10, 11-7) will host Lycoming on Monday in a Commonwealth Conference playoff game.