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Millersville

Rhyan Mitchell

Paint battle key as Marauders visit weary Mounties

| By: Wes Champlin, Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

COVERAGE LINKS

  • Series vs. Mansfield: 73–7
  • Series Streak: W1
  • First Meeting: W, 72–46 (1981-82)
  • Last Meeting: W, 85–75 (Feb. 17, 2024)
  • Last 10 Meetings: 8–2
  • Most ‘Ville Points: 101
  • Record at Mansfield: 31–7
  • Kira Mowen vs. Mansfield: 1–1
  • Amy Senefelder vs. Millersville: 2–4

ABOUT THE GAME

  • The Millersville Marauders (10-5, 5-3) look to maintain their position atop the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) East Division when they take on the Mansfield Mountaineers (7-8, 3-6) Wednesday evening. The Marauders are coming off of a 2-1 start to the PSAC East slate while the Mounties will be playing their third game in five days. 

SCOUTING THE MARAUDERS

  • Millersville returned to the win column with its 62-53 win over the Shepherd Rams on Jan. 11, a contest in which the Marauders led for the final 37 minutes but never by more than 12 points. Kali March reached the 1,000 career point plateau with the first basket of the game and drained a dagger three in transition with a little over a minute remaining to seal the deal. 
  • March is Millersville's leading scorer and primary three-point threat, but she's also been racking up the steals of late. The veteran point guard often uses her quickness to read and jump routine passes both in the halfcourt and transition; she's tallied a takeaway in 10 straight games and is averaging 3.2 steals per game over her last five games. March's gambling in the defensive halfcourt can hurt the Marauders by causing her to be out of position at times, but that's more than offset by the easy fastbreak opportunities that it creates when she's successful. 
  • Rhyan Mitchell's role has begun to evolve during her sophomore season. She's been primarily used as a forward over the season's first 14 games, but head coach Kira Mowen put out multiple lineups that had two post players and Mitchell as a wing during their contest against Shepherd. She's one of the most long and athletic players in the conference, and that's started to translate to the court, where she uses that and her impressive handles to get to the rim from all angles. 
  • Hot on March's heels for both the team's leading scorer title and the 1,000 career point mark is senior forward Makiah Shaw, who enters this game needing just 25 points to become the 22nd player to get there in a Marauder uniform. Her career high is 26, and the sweet-shooting Shaw is always a threat to heat up, so there's a chance she does it against the Mounties. 
  • A deciding factor in this contest may be the inside presence of Shaw, Bryn Zentner and Morgan Mahoney. The Mounties are tied with the Marauders atop the conference in blocks per game (4.27) and top five in offensive and defensive rebounds. Zentner is coming off of the third double-double of her freshman season, recording 13 points and 12 boards along with a block and two steals–all without missing a field goal. After finishing 2024 as the conference's blocks leader, Mahoney has run into what kept her from delivering consistently elite performances last season: foul trouble. She's been limited to just 16.3 MPG over her last three games and has finished each contest with four fouls after averaging 25.1 MPG and finishing with four or more fouls twice in the 12 games prior. 

SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS

  • An end-of-quarter Kutztown run heading into the final period proved to be the difference as the Mountaineers fell to the Golden Bears 75-62 on Monday evening. That came after edging Shippensburg by one point on Saturday, where a Katie Sheeler free throw with two seconds left proved to be the difference.
  • Sheeler is a name that Marauder fans may remember from the Mounties' 84-60 win on Jan. 20 of last year, as she had 25 points on eight-of-13 shooting including five threes in that contest. With the departure of dominant paint presence Jasmine Hilton, Sheeler has taken full control of the offense in her sophomore season; she's fifth in the conference in scoring, averaging 17.1 PPG while taking over half of her shots from beyond the three-point line. It will be a good test for a Marauder defense that struggled to defend the perimeter in their loss to Bloomsburg on Jan. 8. She's reached double-digits in 13 of her 15 games played and averages the most minutes per game in the conference (35.8).
  • Second-leading scorer Danae Ellzy missed about a month's worth of action but returned on Dec. 17 and has been remarkably consistent since then, tallying between 13 and 17 points in each of her five games played. She missed the Jan. 13 loss to Kutztown, so the junior may not be available for the Mounties in this contest.
  • The Mounties are tied with the Marauders atop the conference in blocks per game (4.27) and rank second in total rebounds per game (41.5) and fourth in offensive rebounds per game (13.1). Leading the charge for the Mounties is bespectacled senior forward Sarah Hortin, who recently surpassed Mahoney for the top spot in the conference in blocks per game with 1.8. The six-footer leads the Mounties in rebounding (8.7/gm), and enters this game on a hot streak having won PSAC Defensive Athlete of the Week; she tallied four swats against Shepherd and a three-block four-steal performance against Shippensburg.

SERIES HISTORY

  • It was a tale of two games against the Mounties last season, as 24 turnovers did the Marauders in at Mansfield on Jan. 20 before they got their revenge nearly a month later with an 85-75 win on Feb. 17. The Marauders have traditionally owned this rivalry, with a 73-7 mark all-time. The Marauders are a slightly less impressive (but still dominant) 31-7 when playing at Mansfield. The bulk of the 73-7 record came prior to 2006, when Millersville put together 30 straight wins over the Mounties; that was part of a larger stretch in which they won 44 of 45 games over the first 24 years of the rivalry. 

PSAC ROUNDUP & STANDINGS

  • Despite the Marauders' loss to Bloomsburg last week, they reclaimed sole possession of first place since Lock Haven lost East Stroudsburg on Jan. 11. The surging Huskies have won four straight and are tied with the Bald Eagles for second in the East. Past that, the standings remain bunched up as eight of the nine teams in the division are within 2.5 games of each other. The only team in dire straits is the 1-8 Shepherd Rams, who are 4.5 games out of first. 
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