Sunday afternoon marked both Senior Day and the annual “Pink the Petersen” Breast Cancer Awareness game for the Pitt women’s basketball team, and the Panthers rose to the occasion by defeating the Clemson Tigers, 56-43. 

After Clemson guard Chelsea Lindsay hit a jump shot 45 seconds into the game to give Clemson a 2-0 lead, the Panthers ripped off a 20-0 run over the next seven minutes that put the team on top for the rest of the game.

The team credited the early success to a sustained intensity on defense. 

“The first half, we played so hard defensively,” senior guard Marquel Davis said. “We dove after balls, we helped [on] defense. It also helped playing defense near our bench. That ups our intensity 10 times more.”

“Personally, I think playing defense today was fun,” senior forward Asia Logan added. “I enjoyed it today.”

The defensive intensity was sorely needed in a game in which the Panthers (11-15, 3-9 ACC) only shot 32.6 percent from the field. As a result of the aggressive defense, the Panthers held Clemson to 32.7 percent shooting and forced 14 turnovers.

After a loss to Wake Forest on Feb. 9 in which the team squandered a 17-point halftime advantage, Pitt head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio wanted to dismiss the notion that the game was over, despite the Tigers holding a 33-10 lead after 20 minutes.

“During half time, the first thing Coach Serio said was ‘Do not let up!’” Logan said, “but we were already saying the same thing.”

The win avenged a Panthers loss to the Tigers on Jan. 12, when Pitt fell 77-67 at Clemson (11-15, 3-9 ACC). According to Davis, the Panthers knew that this was a huge opportunity to pick up a win.

“They always say it’s hard to beat a team twice,” Davis said. “So it really helped playing them the first time and playing them again because you knew what to expect. When you watch games on TV it isn’t the same as actually playing them.”

The Panthers were once again led by redshirt sophomore Brianna Kiesel, who tallied 20 points, four rebounds, one assist and two steals in the win. It was a much-needed performance from Pitt’s best player, who struggled in the Panthers’ recent loss to North Carolina after missing the previous game with a concussion.

“I thought the concussion she had sustained in the Maryland game took a toll on her,” McConnell-Serio said of Kiesel. “But there’s no bigger critic of Bri than herself. She looked at this game as an opportunity to redeem herself.”

Aside from Kiesel’s solid performance, the focus of the day was on the trio of Pitt seniors — Davis, Logan and Ashlee Anderson — playing in their penultimate home game as Panthers. Although none of the three lit up the stat sheet — Logan had eight points, Anderson had seven and Davis had four — it was clear the significance of their big day lit a fire under the entire team.

“I thought we came out in the beginning with a lot of emotion,” said McConell-Serio, who inherited this group of seniors upon taking the reins as head coach this year. “We were active, and we were aggressive.”

Anderson tried her best to put the emotions out of sight and out of mind.

“I tried not to think about it,” the redshirt senior, who drained two of the Panthers’ nine made 3-pointers in the win, said. “After we’re done playing basketball, we have to go into the real world. So it was still a pretty emotional moment for me.”

Logan echoed Anderson, saying, “I was the first or second one crying. I was just thinking about my four years here, and [Ashlee and Marquel] and how I love them,” before adding, “Time to grow up.”