CLARION, Pa. – The Clarion women's basketball team got off to a hot start but were unable to capitalize, as the Golden Eagles fell by a 77-53 score to Ursuline in the 2016-17 home opener on Wednesday.  Clarion (1-2) will resume action this weekend with their first PSAC contests of the season when they travel to take on East Stroudsburg and West Chester.
 
Amesha Harden-Pulliam and Tyra Polite tied for the team-high in scoring, with each finishing the night with 10 points.  Delrika Jones-Carey just missed on a double-double, finishing with seven points and a team-high 11 rebounds, and Jordan Bekelja tacked on nine points, five rebounds and four assists.  Tracy Wiehe came in off the bench and provided solid depth in the post, notching six points, four rebounds and a blocked shot.
 
Clarion jumped out to a 14-13 lead at the end of the first quarter but Ursuline caught fire offensively, shooting 48.3 percent from the floor to toss water on the Golden Eagles.  The Golden Eagles had the edge in second chance points 13-6 but the Arrows outscored them 21-14 off turnovers.
 
Polite gave Clarion their first lead of the night with a three-pointer from the right wing to make it 5-4, and Bekelja followed that up with a trey of her own at the 4:19 mark of the first quarter, pulling down a defensive board and racing down the floor for the open shot.  The Arrows pulled to within 8-7 but Wiehe delivered down low, taking a feed from Harden-Pulliam and laying it in to keep it a three-point game. 
 
Ursuline took the lead 12-10 but with 54 seconds left in the first quarter Jones-Carey hit a spinning jumper in the paint to tie the score.  Quorea Pearyer added a midrange J near the end, and Clarion held a 14-13 lead at the end of the first quarter.
 
Things remained close early in the second quarter despite Ursuline taking the lead.  Wiehe took a pass down low from Pearyer and laid it in at the 8:44 mark to cut the Arrows' lead to 17-16, and Harden-Pulliam tied the score less than a minute later with a three-pointer to make it 19-19.  The deficit drifted around two possessions for much of the quarter until a Laney Lewis layup made it 30-21 with 4:16 left in the half, and the Arrows took a 35-24 advantage into the break.
 
The lead reached double-digits in the third quarter, though Harden-Pulliam and Ashley Deleonibus scored on back-to-back possessions to cut it to 36-30 with 7:09 to go.  Ursuline led by 15 points at the end of the third quarter and continued to expand the lead until reaching the final deficit of 24 points.