MILLERSVILLE, Pa. --- Millersville women's basketball (5-7, 1-5 PSAC) got its first conference win in impressive fashion against three-seeded East Stroudsburg (8-5, 3-3 PSAC) Wednesday night inside Pucillo Gymnasium, courtesy of a 73-66 win.  

The Marauders jumped out to a hot start, something they have struggled to do in their most recent matchups on the road, and outscored the Warriors 17-16 in an opening quarter that was as close as it could be. Jillian Crawford connected from deep twice in the midst of a 13-4 run to open the game, the first opened up the scoring for the Marauders. In terms of efficiency, the Marauders shot the ball at an impressive clip, going 7 of 14 from the field and an even better 3 of 5 from deep. 

Millersville really opened up the game in the second quarter and built off an already strong first quarter that left them with a one-point lead. The Marauders began the second quarter with an 11-2 run, with scoring coming from Morgan Mahoney, Daniella Ranieli, Bryn Zentner, and Carley Berk. Much as the Marauders' scoring was during this run, it was much of the same for the remainder of the night, coming from all positions on the court. Millersville led the Warriors by ten going into the break, their best first-half performance by far in conference play this year. 

ESU roared back, though, with the help of an off-shooting quarter from the Marauders; they outscored Millersville 21-9 in the third to eventually take a 53-51 lead. 

Now down going into the fourth, the Marauders needed to summon some of the offensive production that they had throughout the opening half of play. They did just that, despite not hitting a three-pointer in the fourth quarter, the Marauders shot 9 of 14 from the field and held it down defensively against a high-octane Warriors offense to score 22 points to ESU's 13. The Marauders would go on to win their first conference game this year by a score of 73-66. 

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE

• Morgan Mahoney led the way for the Marauders with 16 points, four rebounds, and two blocks. 
• Following behind Mahoney was a trio of double-digit scorers in Carley Berk (12), Daniella Ranieli (10), and Kelly Cleaver (10). 
• The Marauders shot an impressive 9-19 (47.4%) from three.
• Millersville out-rebounded the Warriors 41-34. 

POST GAME WITH COACH KIRA MOWEN

• The word for your team after the past two games would be resilience, and even after fighting off a comeback attempt by the Warriors, what was the key to that first-quarter start for your team? 
  • "I think if you're paying attention to any of the games we had on the road this year we come out super super slow or super flat. I think the focus this past week as we got back from out western road trip was to really try to start hot with a lot of energy and you saw that tonight... I like to get the first jump and that is what I am trying to encourage us to do is get that first jump."  
• Talk me through the progression of rebounding for your team so far this year? 
  • " It is always my encouragement, I think I have great post players, all of them and I do have some guards that can fly in there and get it. Tonight, my frustration even though we out rebounded them was we didn't do our job from an offensive rebounding perspective that we usually do, but when you shoot 47% from the floor your chances of getting those offensive rebounds is obviously lower."