Leadership goes a long way

The women’s basketball team snapped its four-game losing streak against the Mountaineers with… The women’s basketball team snapped its four-game losing streak against the Mountaineers with a total team effort. Pitt used another strong performance from senior guard Laine Selwyn and 10 points off the bench from freshman guard Jessica Allen.

“This was a team win,” head coach Traci Waites said.

Each player seemed to know and fulfill her role on the team.

The Panthers were outrebounded in the first half, 22-13, which led to West Virginia beating Pitt with second chance points, 8-2.

The only production for the Panthers in the first half came from their starters as not one player scored off the bench. Only one rebound from the bench was pulled down by junior forward Sheila Stufflet.

Pitt entered halftime down by three points, 26-23.

Waites merely pointed the weak statistic out to her team during the break, and the Panthers knew what they had to do.

The second half brought out an entirely different Pitt team than the one that was on the court during the first half.

Selwyn stepped up as the team leader and finished with a game high 22 points, five assists and five defensive rebounds.

Starter Mandy Wittenmyer played her role as another senior leader with 11 points and seven rebounds, most coming in the second half.

The troops followed their lead, marching Pitt to its first conference victory at the Petersen Events Center.

Sophomore Haley Harguth scored eight points off the bench in 11 minutes, while adding three offensive rebounds. Harguth was 2 for 2 from the charity stripe.

Allen had a perfect second half shooting 4 for 4 from the field and 2 for 2 from behind the arc.

All of Allen’s points came within a nine-minute time span in the middle of the second half when points were critical and the game was still a toss-up. Allen also had two defensive boards. She only played 18 minutes off the bench.

“I come out and play hard,” Allen said. “Coach expects her subs to give it all we got.”

Pitt picked up its team rebounding, with 10 boards coming off the bench. After the second half, Pitt narrowed the nine-rebound gap to only four, which was also crucial to the Panther victory.

The team practically doubled its halftime point and rebound totals as a team to finish the game.

Selwyn will have to continue to rally up the troops, and Pitt will have to keep on playing as a team, on and off the bench, if the team hopes to make it to the Big East Championships.

The Panthers have four big conference games remaining to pull it all together.