Frazier Pushes Penn State Past Clemson

Story posted November 22, 2019 in CommRadio, Sports by Jerome Taylor

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Siyeh Frazier’s double-double led the Penn State Lady Lions to a wire-to-wire 68-55 victory over the Clemson Tigers on Thursday at the Bryce Jordan Center.

Penn State (3-2) was looking to avenge a disappointing defeat against La Salle on Sunday, which featured a 21-point comeback from the Explorers. The Lady Lions were able to stave off déjà vu against the Tigers (2-3) after Clemson pulled within one in the third quarter.

“We’re going to be presented with the same challenges until we conquer it,” junior Kamaria McDaniel said. “We knew what we had to change from the last time, and I was proud that we learned from our mistakes.”

Head coach Carolyn Kieger spoke on a strategy that helped her team rebound emotionally from the loss to La Salle in order to better prepare for Clemson.

“I thought we did a great job of doing what we practiced this week,” Kieger said. “We had our sports psychologist come in, and we practiced huddles, and we practiced handling adversity, and I think we reverted back to what we did the last two days.”

Senior guard Siyeh Frazier’s energetic play was key to stifling the Clemson comeback bid, as she was the focal point of the offense during the Lady Lions’ 14-2 run out of a timeout.

“My thing is showing emotions and [my teammates] want me to show more emotion and I think I should,” Frazier said of her inspired second half performance, “They ask me for that so I have to give it to them, and if that makes them better, it makes us better.”

Frazier led all scorers with 17 and contributed 10 rebounds. She was also one of four Lady Lions in double figures. Sophomore forward Lauren Ebo finished with an efficient 16 points off the bench (7 of 8 from the field and 2 of 3 from the line) and was another spark plug for Penn State in the victory.

The Lady Lions also got after it on the defensive end, forcing the Tigers to shoot only 33% from the field and commit 19 turnovers throughout the game.

“The coaches did an extremely good job at preparing us for what [the Tigers] were going to do,” McDaniel said of the defensive performance. “Nothing happened that we were not prepared for this week in practice. It was like we were seeing it twice.”

Kieger believes this game was an important step for the growth of the team.

“I thought our girls did a great job just composing themselves, weathering that storm,” Kieger said. “It was an awesome growth moment to see them come back, take a punch, weather it, and continue to keep going.”

The Lady Lions will face off against George Mason on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Bryce Jordan Center to end their five-game homestand.

 

Jerome Taylor is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jerometaylor91697@gmail.com.