Rams win in Wooden’s return

MILLERSVILLE » The West Chester women started the New Year with an impressive finish and a basketball road win for head coach Kiera Wooden, who missed the previous four games after giving birth to twins in early December.

In a game of runs, the Golden Rams launched the final salvo to power the squad to a 76-69 victory at Millersville’s Pucillo Gymnasium. West Chester improves to 4-3 in the PSAC East (7-4 overall), but still trails first place East Stroudsburg by two games. The Marauders fall to 2-5, 5-6.

“It’s great to be back, especially when we can get a win on the road. I’ll take it,” Wooden said.

“Coach Kee is great,” added senior forward Mia Hopkins. “We love her encouragement and enthusiasm. She is a great fit as a coach for me.”

Thanks to some tenacious defense down the stretch, the Rams pulled away late, allowing just

two buckets in the final seven minutes, 27 seconds, and both came with the outcome assured. Trailing by three, WCU outscored Millersville 17-7 the rest of the way to win its second in a row.

“We needed to play good defense for that last eight minutes because I don’t think we played as well as we need to for the first 30 minutes,” Wooden pointed out. “We did a better job of switching on the screens and handling some of their screen action much better than we did in the first half.”

What was a differencemaking 13-1 rally included four free throws and a bucket by Porscha Speller, a jumper by Katherine Fisher and more free throws from Lexi Bruno and Camden Boehner. It opened a nine point lead with less than a minute remaining.

Senior Mia Hopkins poured in 22 points on 8 of 11 shooting, and Bruno added 16 off the bench to help make up for an off shooting night for Speller and Boehner, who shot a combined 4-for-12 from the floor.

“We know that Mia is capable of doing that,” Wooden said. “She had been struggling a little bit lately because opponents are honing in on her a little bit, but she is a very versatile scorer who is capable of knocking down the three and capable of getting to the rim. She did that, and when she does it fuels us and we feed off of her energy.

“We needed others to step up in this game. Mia did that and so did others

“We needed to play good defense for that last eight minutes because Idon’tthinkwe played as well asweneedto for the first 30 minutes.”

like Lexi Bruno. What is beautiful about our team is that you can’t just stop one of our players and expect to win the game because we have others capable of stepping up.”

The Rams didn’t get off to the best of starts as Millersville scored 12 of the first 16 points, but WCU responded by going on a 21-4 first half run of its own. The Marauders, however, bounced back to take a 3736 lead at the break and held the one-point lead after three quarters.

Hopkins’ 22 wasn’t a career high (it’s 27), but she was highly efficient offensively, and added six boards, two assists and two steals.

“I feel like the offense just kind of happens,” Hopkins said. “We have four seniors, so it’s obvious that one of us is going to have a big night. I’m excited to have the versatility where one of us is going to be amazing and the rest will chip in.”