COLUMBUS, Ohio --- The Golden Eagles women's basketball team extended the team's longest win streak in 20 years with a road victory on Sunday afternoon, pulling out a 77-64 win over Ohio Dominican with a dominant fourth quarter. The teams were dead even after each of the first three quarters of action, but an offensive outburst by Clarion in the fourth was the difference.
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With the win, the Golden Eagles have won seven straight games. That is the program's longest win streak since a 10-game heater during the 2004-05 season, when Clarion went 23-7 and reached the Atlantic Region tournament.
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The Panthers were coming off one of the most impressive upsets of the early season, having beaten second-ranked Gannon on Wednesday evening. The game against the Golden Eagles on Sunday was a dogfight, though, with the lead changing seven times and the teams tied another 15 times. The game was knotted a 47 points apiece after three quarters, but Clarion opened the fourth quarter on a 10-2 run to take control for good.
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Freshman point guard
Zoe Guice – who finished with a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds, as well as five steals and three assists – scored the first bucket of the quarter, making a short jumper in the paint. The Golden Eagles got a stop and
Madison Palek tacked onto the lead, making a three-pointer to up the lead to 52-47, and
Tearra Cook tipped one in on an offensive rebounds to make it 54-49.
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The defense continued to keep the heat on the Panthers, holding them to just two free throw makes for the first 4:37 of the fourth quarter.
DayLynn Thornton hit a short jumper to make it 56-49 and Cook added a foul shot of her own, giving Clarion an eight-point lead with just six minutes left to go in regulation.
Arianna Seitz knocked down a trey at the 3:36 mark to push the lead into double-digits, making it 64-53, and
Madison Palek scored on an offensive rebound to make it a 15-point game. The Golden Eagles cruised to the victory from there.
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Seitz finished with a team-high 15 points on 5-of-12 shooting and also pulled down seven rebounds. Guice,
Autumn Taylor and
Hannah Wilkerson all scored 13 points.
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As was the case for three-quarters of the game, it was a close fight between the teams in the first. Clarion led by as many as four points in the quarter – the largest separation between the teams in the period – on a transition bucket by Guice, but Gabby Stare evened things up at 16 before the end of the quarter. Taylor put Clarion up 25-20 in the second quarter after a 9-2 run, but the Panthers responded with a 10-2 run of their own to give themselves a 30-27 lead. Seitz tied it up with a pair of free throws late heading into halftime.
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The Panthers had another big run in the third quarter, going up 47-42 with three minutes left in the period on a three-pointer by Sarah Ochs. That would be their final field goal for more than seven minutes of game time, though, as the Golden Eagle defense went to work. Taylor made a three-pointer to cut it to 47-45, and Cook scored a bucket after a steal by Guice to even things up with under two to go in the third.
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