Women’s Basketball: Pitt dominates defensively, defeats Mountaineers

The Pitt women’s basketball team cruised to a win over Mount St. Mary’s on Tuesday night,… The Pitt women’s basketball team cruised to a win over Mount St. Mary’s on Tuesday night, holding the Mountaineers scoreless for more than six minutes at the start of the game.

The Panthers’ swarming defense didn’t stop there. Head coach Agnus Berenato’s team dominated the contest defensively, limiting the Mountaineers (2-4) to a miniscule 30.5 percent shooting and forcing 20 turnovers as Pitt (4-2) picked up a 58-45 victory.

“We just preach defense,” sophomore forward Kyra Dunn said. “And I think we did really well defensively to convert on our steal opportunities.”

The Panthers started strong, jumping out to a 12-0 lead even with leading scorer Marquel Davis sitting out with a concussion.

By the time the Mountaineers finally scored on a layup with about 13:30 remaining in the first half, they had already missed nine shots and turned the ball over five times.

“We talked about how the first five minutes were really important,” Berenato said. “Our press was pretty active and forced a lot of turnovers, which led to a lot of buckets. You always have to jump on them.”

The Mountaineers slowly climbed their way back into the game during the first half. Senior Sandra Andresson’s bucket in the final minute cut the Panthers’ lead to seven heading into the break.

But in the beginning of the second half, Pitt responded with another run that effectively ensured the Panthers’ victory.

Pitt redshirt sophomore guard Ashlee Anderson made her team’s first 3-pointer of the game and quickly added a layup before freshman guard Brianna Kiesel drained another 3-pointer to stretch the Pitt lead out to 15.

Anderson, who started in place of Davis, almost earned a triple-double. She finished with a game-high 13 points and tallied career-highs with nine rebounds and seven assists.

“It’s always good to start,” Anderson said. “I was kind of happy because I hadn’t seen my face up on the [Jumbotron] in awhile. And I didn’t even know I was close to a triple-double.”

With Pitt’s significant size advantage and a tough defense that prevented Mount St. Mary’s from stringing a scoring run together, the Mountaineers didn’t climb any closer than nine points for the remainder of the game.

The Panthers combined to grab 42 rebounds, including a team-high 12 boards from Dunn.

“I thought that Kyra really made great strides,” Berenato said. “She had a tremendous amount of tips and blocks – her intangibles helped us to get ahead.”

The Panthers, who are coming off a 21-point loss to Drexel last Saturday, haven’t lost back-to-back games yet this season. This weekend, Pitt will play its first road games of the year at High Point and Duke.

“I was proud of our team for coming out strong, especially after a defeat,” Berenato said. “I wasn’t sure how this team would rebound.”