Nov. 16, 2008

Box Score

CLARION - Clarion University women's basketball coach Margaret "Gie" Parsons won her 400th career game Sunday evening when the Golden Eagles defeated Alderson-Broaddus 70-50 at Clarion's Tippin Gym in the second day of the Clarion Classic.

"I have to thank all of the players I've had," Parsons said. "This is really a `players' award. Without all the great players I've coached over the years, this won't be possible. I want to say thank you to all of them."

Parsons is now 400-311 in her 28th year as a head coach. She is the 14th active winningest coach in NCAA Division II and the 33rd winningest Division II coach all time. Parsons is 290-238 in her 20th year at Clarion, the winningest coach in school history, and has led the Golden Eagles to six NCAA D-II playoff appearances, 10 PSAC Playoff spots, two trips to the NCAA D-II "Elite Eight", five PSAC-West titles and three PSAC titles.

Win No. 400 was really never in doubt. Behind 11 points in the first 5:03 by Lizzie Suwala, Clarion (2-0) led 13-4 right out of the gate. The Golden Eagles got the lead to 14 in the first half before going into halftime up 12, 29-17.

Clarion then started the second half on a 30-13 run to go ahead 54-26 with 13:32 to play.

Suwala scored a career-high 24 points on 10 of 12 shooting including 4 of 4 from beyond the three-point arc.

Bethany Koch added seven points and a career-best 13 rebounds, while Chelsey Grabigel had 10 points and four assists.

Caitlyn Brown led Alderson-Broaddus (0-2) with 15 points and six rebounds, while Sonya Jones had 12 points and seven rebounds.

Clarion returns to action at 6 p.m. Wednesday when it hosts Findlay.

NOTES - Parsons was also 110-73 in eight years at Thiel before coming to Clarion for the 1990 season ... Katrina Greer had six points in the game giving her 1,050 career points, the ninth most in school history.