It has been a whirlwind couple of days for the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team.<\/p>\n
Congratulatory messages and reaction on social media to the Division III Lady Royals upsetting Division I University of Pittsburgh on Sunday, 69-63, have been nonstop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been unbelievable how many people have reached out to congratulate our team, our athletic department and our university,\u201d coach Ben O\u2019Brien said. \u201cJust very, very proud of our players, our coaching staff and administration \u2014 everyone that played a hand in helping us get this game in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the more notable messages O\u2019Brien received were from university president Fr. Joseph Marina, S.J., and athletic director Dave Martin.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually after a game, if the president of the university or the athletic director call you, it means something big has happened,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cCertainly those two stand out to me. Hearing from Father Marina and Dave Martin were just terrific things. They support our players so much and do so many things to help our program. It was great to hear from those two especially.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scranton built a 37-27 halftime lead, but Pitt used a 23-7 third quarter to take a 50-44 lead. However, with freshman and Dunmore graduate Sophia Talutto scoring eight points and Katie Gorski, Elizabeth Bennett and Meghan Lamanna each scoring five points, the Lady Royals outscored the Panthers in the fourth quarter, 25-7, to pull off the upset.<\/p>\n
Bennett finished with 15 points. Talutto added 14 points, while Gorski and Lamanna scored 11 points apiece. Gorski also grabbed 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe jumped up on them early and able to get out in front,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cThey made a really good run at us in the third quarter, but our players did not fold. They responded and saved their best for last. They played their best quarter in the fourth quarter and that really was the difference in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien called the trip home \u201cthe fastest five-hour bus ride of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great experience, one that the players and coaches will never forget,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully we can use all the lessons that we learned in that game moving forward to that our best basketball is yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the loss counts against Pitt\u2019s record \u2014 the Panthers are 2-2 \u2014 the win doesn\u2019t not count toward Scranton\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
Now, the Lady Royals (3-0) will guard against a letdown as they open Landmark Conference play Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Drew University. The Lady Rangers are off to a 2-1 start, having defeated Rutgers-Camden, 71-57, and Rutgers-Newark, 91-45, but losing to Franklin & Marshall, 67-62. Scranton then hosts Goucher College (3-0) on Saturday at 4 p.m. and Tufts University (1-1) on Sunday at 1 p.m. Tufts is coached by former Scranton standout Meredith Mesaris.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt practice Monday, our sole focus was getting better and focusing on Drew,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cJust putting all of our physical and mental energy into the next task at hand. We spent a lot of time talking to our players about that. Everything we\u2019re talking about now involves Drew. Pitt was a great experience, but that is now in the past for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the Scranton men, they also are off to a 3-0 start and open Landmark play Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the John Long Center against Drew. The Rangers, defending league champion, is also 3-0 and coached by Ryan Van Zeist in his first season. Van Zeist spent seven seasons as an assistant coach with the Royals (2016-22).<\/p>\n
Junior and Valley View graduate Eli Yusavage is a returning starter for Drew. He averaged 16.0 points in the Rangers\u2019 first two wins over Centenary and The College of New Jersey, but he did not play in the victory over Rowan University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a whirlwind couple of days for the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team. Congratulatory messages…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2300,178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-38084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}