Complete Game Notes

GAME INFORMATION
Millersville (12-6, 9-5 PSAC) vs. Mansfield (4-14, 2-12 PSAC)
Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013 - 1 p.m.
Pucillo Gymnasium, Millersville, Pa.

MEDIA INFORMATION
All-Access Live Video
Audio Broadcast (MSBN)
Live Stats

TICKET INFORMATION
www.muticketsonline.com
Reserved Seating: $8
General Admission (Doubleheader): $6
General Admission (Single game): $5
Senior Citizen: $3
Visiting Students with ID: $3
Children under 6: FREE
MU Students: FREE with valid ID
Faculty and Staff: FREE with one guest with valid ID

GAMEDAY PROMOTIONS

SERIES INFORMATION
Series vs. Mansfield: 57-3
Series Streak: Ville, 11
First Meeting: 1981-82 (Ville, 72-46)
Last Meeting: 2012 (Ville, 66-45)
Last 10: 10-0
Mary Fleig vs. Mansfield: 43-2
Alison Tagliaferri vs. Millersville: 0-0

THE STARTING FIVE
(1) Millersville dropped its most recent game on the road at Shippensburg Wednesday night, 70-58, in a crucial PSAC East matchup. With the loss, the Marauders drop into a second-place tie with the Raiders and Kutztown Golden Bears. All three teams are looking up at Bloomsburg, which leads the pack by a game with a 10-4 record in league play. At Heiges Fieldhouse, Ship attempted the most free throws by a PSAC team since 2009-10 with 43 trips to the line. The Raiders made 32 of them, twice as many field goals as the team made (16). Millersville still controls its own destiny in the race for the division's top seed, which enables that team to host the PSAC Tournament in 2013. The team still has a game against each team left, but faces Mansfield first on Saturday before looping back through the PSAC East schedule for a second time.

(2) In the game against the Raiders, redshirt senior forward Aurielle Mosley kept her hot hand, hitting for at least 20 points in her third consecutive game and her second double-double in a row. The York native chipped in 22 points and 13 rebounds in the loss. Earlier in the week, she was named PSAC East Athlete of the Week for a career-best fourth time this season and could easily see a fifth award if she has another big outing against the Mountaineers. If the last two seasons of work against Mansfield for the Central York High School product are any indication, Mosley is set to have a huge impact against the Mountaineers at Pucillo. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, she has averaged 18.8 points, 13.5 rebounds and 3.8 blocks per game in four career meetings with Mansfield.

(3) Even though the Mountaineers are just 4-14 overall and just 2-12 in conference play, Saturday's game is a big one for Millersville in that a win versus Mansfield would clinch a playoff berth for the Marauders. It would mark the 17th-straight year in which head coach Mary Fleig has guided her teams to the PSAC Tournament. The win would put Millersville eight games up on the Mountaineers with just seven games to play in the regular season. A win would also be huge for the Marauders to keep pace in the race for the No. 1 seed in the division, particularly because Bloomsburg and Kutztown square off in PSAC East action as well on Saturday.

(4) Miesha Cousins has been quietly consistent for the Marauders and is enjoying one of the best stretches of her career over her past seven games. In three of the Susquehanna Township High School product's past four games, she has hit for double figure scoring after having just two such outings in the first 14 games of the season. If you go all the way back to her career-high 16 points on Jan. 11 at California (Pa.), Cousins has hit double digits in four of her past seven games and has only dipped below eight points in a game once. During the span in which she is averaging 10.3 points per game, she is rebounding at a rate of 6.4 boards per game, just below her season average of 6.8 per outing.

(5) For the Marauders to assure victory, the team has to go into the locker room at halftime either in front of its opponent or in a deadlock. Millersville is a perfect 10-0 and 7-0 in PSAC play when going into the break either with a lead or in a tie. The team also cannot allow its opposition to score 70 or more points. When the Marauders allow less than 70 points in a game, they are undefeated with a 9-0, 8-0 PSAC record. However, when the opposing team crosses the 70-point barrier, Millersville is just 3-6 and 1-5 in league play.

ABOUT KUTZTOWN
· Mansfield enters Pucillo Gymnasium Saturday on the heels of a six game losing skid. The team has not won since defeating Clarion in its second-to-last PSAC crossover game of the season at home on Jan. 11. Of those six losses, five have come at home on the Decker Gymnasium hardwood, dropping the Mountaineers home record to 4-6 in 2012-13.
· While the season has been a rough one for Mansfield, a positive sign can come from first-year head coach Alison Tagliaferri. Tagliaferri is an alum and former two-sport athlete at Mansfield from 2002-06, and each of her teams won at least four games in PSAC play while she was a player for the Mountaineers. She was a four-time All-PSAC East First Team selection in basketball, three-time pick in softball and the PSAC East Freshman of the Year in basketball her rookie season. Her biggest accomplishment as a former Mountie was claiming the PSAC East Player of the Year during her senior season in 2006. She was the first Mansfield women's athlete to take home that award following a season in which she led the Mountaineers to their first PSAC Tournament berth.·
· Her team faces a tall task Saturday, trekking to a Millersville campus on which the team has never won a game. Mansfield is 3-57 all-time against the Marauders and 0-31 in games played at Millersville. The Mountaineers have dropped those 31 road meetings at the Ville by an average of 19.6 points per game. Combine the woes on trips to Millersville with the fact that Mansfield is 0-8 away from home this season and it could spell trouble for the Mounties.
· Mansfield, which enters with the fifth-lowest scoring offense in the PSAC at 61.7 points per game, is led by two players who average in double figures each night. Jena Matter is the team's best player, and the 6-0 junior forward averages 10.8 points per game while pulling down 7.0 rebounds per outing.  Matter proves her versatility, as she also leads the team in steals and blocks with the third-most assists on the team. The only other player to post double-digit scoring for the Mounties is Katie Fitzpatrick. The freshman guard scores at a pace of 10.0 points per game and pulls down 5.2 rebounds per game, good for third on the team behind only Matter and Julia Stevenson's 5.6 rebounds per game. Stevenson is the team's third-best scorer, at an 8.4 point per game pace.
· The Mountaineers' biggest Achilles heel during the 2012-13 season is coincidentally the Marauders' biggest strength: the defensive end of the court. Mansfield allows a league-worst 72.8 points per game, and opponents have eclipsed that total eight times so far this year. Part of the reason for the defensive struggles is due to an opponent field goal percentage that is also the highest in the conference by a full percentage point. The Mountaineers have also gotten beat from deep. The team's 3-point field goal percent defense allows opposing teams to shoot .310 from beyond the arc, the fifth-highest figure in the conference. Again, that crossover is an ominous sign for Mansfield, as one of Millersville's biggest strength's is its 3-point shooting percentage. The Marauders make 33 percent of their 3-pointers and an average of 5.6 per game. The Mountaineers will need to slow down Millersville's long-range shooting to have a chance in Saturday's trip to Pucillo.