Shippensburg University women\u2019s basketball earned its first win of 2025 on Saturday, defeating Lincoln (Pa.) 59\u201355 in overtime to close the Conference Challenge at Heiges Field House. The victory followed a 52\u201337 season-opening loss to Fayetteville State on Friday.<\/p>\n
Shippensburg struggled offensively against Fayetteville State. The Broncos began with a 9-0 run and forced 10 Raider turnovers in the first quarter. The Raiders shot just 15.8% in the first half, trailing 26\u201311 at the halftime break.<\/p>\n
The Raiders improved after halftime, matching the Broncos 26\u201326 in the second half. Freshman guard Melana Eyer debuted with 10 points and seven rebounds. Senior forward Makayla Foddrell had nine points on 4-of-8 shooting, and sophomore McKenzie Thomas collected a career-high eight rebounds.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, head coach Kristy Trn said she saw progress from her young roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very impressed with their defense,\u201d Trn said. \u201cTo hold Fayetteville State to 52 points when they averaged 67 last year is great for a very young team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shippensburg built on that growth Saturday against Lincoln, overcoming a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit to win 59\u201355 in overtime.<\/p>\n
The Raiders did not hold a lead all night, but with less than 30 seconds left and facing a three-point deficit, they kept their composure at the line. Johns and Eyer knocked down four consecutive free throws, with Eyer\u2019s final two tying the game at 47 in the closing seconds, bringing the crowd to its feet in a standing ovation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely nerve-wracking, especially as a freshman stepping up to the line,\u201d Eyer said. \u201cBut it felt really good to send us into overtime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raiders struck quickly in overtime. Sophomore Michelle Olak scored inside, and Thomas followed with a three-pointer for early momentum. Lincoln briefly led by one, but Shippensburg responded. Olak finished a layup through contact, and after missing the free throw, Eyer rebounded and scored, putting SU up 56\u201354.<\/p>\n
Johns sealed the win, sinking a three-pointer with under a minute left to extend the Raiders\u2019 lead to 59\u201355.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt pretty good,\u201d Johns said. \u201cI just told myself to keep shooting and stay confident because we needed some points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johns led the Raiders with a career-high 18 points, scoring 13 of them in the fourth quarter and overtime. Eyer added 12 points and four assists while playing all 45 minutes. Olak finished with 12 points and six rebounds, and freshman forward Kiara Hardy totaled five steals and five assists off the bench.<\/p>\n
After the win, Trn praised the team\u2019s resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest positive is that they don\u2019t quit,\u201d Trn said. \u201cTheir culture has been outstanding, and our leaders have really come together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eyer and Johns were both named to the All-Tournament Team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shippensburg University women\u2019s basketball earned its first win of 2025 on Saturday, defeating Lincoln (Pa.) 59\u201355 in overtime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-292642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}