Penn State uses a high-powered 4th quarter in comeback win over Fordham
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Junior guard Teniya Page took the game into her own hands in the final quarter on Wednesday night to propel the Lady Lions to a comeback 65-60 win over the Fordham Rams at the Bryce Jordan Center.
“[Coach] told me that I needed to be more aggressive so that’s what I did,” Page said.
In a game where the Lady Lions were trailing for 38 total minutes, and down by seven going to the fourth quarter, Penn State head coach Coquese Washington kept her team focused the whole way through.
“Tonight, it came together in the fourth quarter,” Washington said. “But we don’t want to be a team that has to rely on Teniya [Page] having fourth-quarter heroics. We certainly have to play better the first three quarters.
The Rams got out to an early lead behind the hot hand of junior guard Lauren Holden, who had several open looks from three and connected on four of them in the game. Holden finished with a team-high 14 points.
For a team that was only shooting 25 percent from beyond the arc in their first six games, the Rams were confident and selective in the shots they took and converted at a 35 percent rate.
Additionally, the Rams grabbed 21 offensive rebounds, 10 of which game from junior forward Mary Goulding.
“In the timeouts [we talked about] that we needed to get stops,” Washington said. “We had been playing zone, and got some big rebounds, but with 45 seconds to go we opted to go man to man and Jaylen [Williams] had a big block.”
Despite being outrebounded and only making three 3-pointers in the game, the Lady Lions were able to finally start hitting clutch shots in the fourth quarter.
“I thought the last four minutes of the game we did a much better job of securing defense rebounds,” Washington said. “We were able to get those defensive rebounds and get going in transition, so that was key to us being able to pull out the win.”
The Lady Lions were able to bounce back in the fourth quarter with a new-found energy. Sparked by Page’s game-high 27 points and two huge blocks from Williams, the Lady Lions were able to close the gap and outscore the Rams 23-11 in the game’s final quarter. Over the course of the entire quarter, the Lady Lions shot 7 of 9 from the field and 8 of 9 from the free throw line in the crunch time.
The Lady Lions’ defense stepped up and held the Rams team that shot over 40 percent the first three quarters to only 18 percent in the fourth quarter.
“We talked about some rotation things that we needed to do better, and we wanted to do a better job at contesting shots in the first half,” Washington said. “They got too many wide-open looks, and we certainly didn’t want to give them wide-open looks in the second half.”
The Lady Lions take their three-game winning streak on the road to St. Bonaventure on Saturday, Dec. 9 and kick off a four-game road trip. The Lady Lions’ longest streak of games away from the Bryce Jordan Center this season.
Joe Skinner is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jcs6108@psu.edu.
