Berenato defeats PSU for first time

From the tip off of Friday night’s game, the Pitt women’s basketball team was on a fast… From the tip off of Friday night’s game, the Pitt women’s basketball team was on a fast track to accomplishing something it hadn’t done before in the Agnus Berenato era — defeat in-state rival and perennial powerhouse Penn State.

After the Panthers (8-0, 0-0 Big East) won the opening tip off, freshman guard Jania Sims got the ball to Marcedes Walker who ran down the floor for an easy first two points.

Walker’s layup, which came only three seconds into the game, gave Pitt the early lead that it never lost. Just over a minute later, Walker sunk a turnaround hook shot off of the glass to extend the Pitt lead to 4-0.

“From the jump we got out to an 8-0 lead,” Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said. “In practice today we worked on our jump ball and said we were going to score the first basket. We wanted to be a boxer and throw the first punch.”

After jumping to the early lead, Penn State’s junior guard, Adrienne Squire, hit two 3-pointers in under a minute to keep the Nittany Lions in the game early.

But this would not be enough for Penn State (4-5, 0-0 Big Ten). Squire hit another 3-pointer to cut the Pitt lead to two points, but the Panthers came right back with a 3-pointer of their own by Sims.

Early mistakes and poor shooting really hurt Penn State. The Nittany Lions only shot 28.1 percent from the field in the first half, making nine of 28 shots.

Regarding the poor shooting, Penn State Head Coach Rene Portland said, “We were missing open shots and missing layups, which we can’t do. We’re also struggling finishing in the paint.”

Walker and Xenia Stewart contributed to Penn State’s inability to finish in the paint, playing tough defense and picking up nine combined defensive rebounds.

Despite the poor shooting of Penn State during the first half, it was able to go into the locker room at halftime with a three-point deficit. Pitt allowed Penn State to get back into the game with its field goal percentage dropping from 52.6 percent to 37.5 percent as it made a mere 2-for-13 from the field.

Pitt also had to play most of the first half without its leading scorer, and last week’s Big East Player of the Week, Shavonte Zellous.

With two fouls and eight minutes left in the half, Zellous remained in the game, but two and a half minutes later she had to come out for the remainder of the half with only four points.

“We have a very talented team, so if one of us falls we pick each other up because we’re a family and we cover for each other,” Danielle Taylor said. “If Shavonte has four fouls, we all have to come up and step up our game and make up those points. We all had to stay together for this win.”

Taylor did just that, racking up eight points in 17 minutes despite fouling out with just under seven minutes remaining in the game.

The Panthers came out on fire in the second half, hitting three of four from the field to increase their lead to seven points. Seven points was the closest the Nittany Lions would come to continuing their three-game winning streak against Pitt.

With Pitt’s lead at eight, freshman guard Ashleigh Braxton threw up a quick 3-pointer that did not go in. Berenato was not pleased with the guard’s shot selection.

“She took a 3 with 24 seconds on the clock,” she said. “I’m an inside-outside girl so I don’t mind you taking that shot with 10 seconds or less.”

Braxton took that advice 10 minutes later as she hit a 3-pointer to get Pitt’s lead to 10 off of an assist by Sims. Sims led all players with seven assists on the night. This was two short of her season high, nine, which came against Mount St. Mary’s on Nov. 17.

Berenato was much happier with Braxton’s second 3-point attempt.

“When she took that shot, that was within the set play and that’s the difference,” she said. “There was a play for that and if she missed we were in rebounding position, that one that she had taken a couple minutes earlier she just panicked or something.”

Berenato gave Taylor a pass on her quick 3 that she missed in the first half. “We did one of those in the first half, too, Danielle did it but it’s her senior year so it’s OK, she’s allowed to do that.”

Pitt’s bench contributed 13 points on the night, out-scoring Penn State’s bench by five points. The Panthers also scored more fast break points and points off of turnovers than the Lady Lions as they out-scored them in those categories 8-4 and 9-4, respectively.

Berenato was very pleased with this win, not only because it advanced their record-setting start to 8-0, but they were able to beat a Penn State team that has a lot of tradition in the sport.

“I want to compliment Rene and her program because they have tremendous tradition. Any time you have a program that goes to the NCAA [tournament] 21 years, that truly is tradition and that’s what we want. Tonight Penn State stood in our way and we took care of them.”

They did so in front of an electric crowd of 3,938 people. The Oakland Zoo was in full effect, and most of the men’s team was there as well as head coach Jamie Dixon, sporting his own Oakland Zoo shirt.

Berenato enjoyed the crowd.

“It was an electric, fun, exciting crowd,” she said.

The Panthers play host to cross-town opponent, Robert Morris on Tuesday in the Petersen Events Center at 7 p.m.