Box Score

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.  -- The Fairleigh Dickinson women's basketball team suffered a 101-44 road loss to No. 6/7 Penn State at the Bryce Jordan Center on Sunday afternoon. The loss drops FDU to 1-5 on the season, while the Lady Lions improve to 6-1 overall.
 
Redshirt junior Danielle Pankey (Middletown, N.J./Middletown South) paced the offense with 15 points, and freshman Kelsey Cruz (Chester, Va./Lloyd C. Bird) made the most of her 13 minutes by scoring a career-high 13 points, all in the second half.  
 
The Lady Lions finished with five players in double digits highlighted by a game-high 24 points from Maggie Lucas and 18 from Ariel Edwards. FDU held a 15-13 rebounding edge in the first half, but PSU responded with a 39-12 second half advantage on the boards and finished with 52 rebounds to FDU's 27.
 
“Danielle Pankey (Middletown, N.J./Middletown South) showed a lot of competitive fight, and Kelsey Cruz (Chester, Va./Lloyd C. Bird) stepped up with some bench scoring.” Head Coach Peter Cinella said. “We had a good start at 10-10, and then their size overwhelmed us.”
 
Playing in front of its largest crowd of the season of 4,072, the Knights battled the Lady Lions out of the gates, and thanks to five early points from Pankey, the game was tied at 10 after nine minutes. 
 
Over the next three minutes, however, the home side grabbed a 22-11 edge. Penn State's run continued in what turned out to be a 26-5 streak to put the Knights in a 36-15 deficit with 4:30 to go before halftime.
 
Despite outrebounding the Lady Lions over the first 20 minutes, led by sophomore Erika Livermore (Nazareth, Pa./Nazareth Area)'s four boards in the first 20 minutes, FDU trailed 50-21 heading into the locker room. On the offensive end, Pankey's eight points in the first half paced the Knights. At the other end, Penn State shot 55.2 percent on field goals, including 50 percent on 3-pointers on 5-of-10 shooting in the opening half.
 
The Lady Lions scored the first nine points of the second half to extend their lead to 59-21.
 
PSU kept up the defensive pressure, forcing eight FDU turnovers after halftime. For the game, FDU turned the ball over 21 times, while the Lady Lions finished with eight turnovers. PSU ended up scoring  37 points off turnovers in the game.  PSU's dominance on the glass led to 27 second-chance points in the second half.
 
For the game, FDU shot 15-of-50 for a 30 percent clip and was 4-of-11 (36.4 percent) from distance. The Lady Lions were just shy of 50 percent from the field with 36-of-73 shooting, including 8-of-17 on 3-pointers.

After three-straight road games, the Knights will return home to Stratis Arena in Hackensack, N.J. to square off with in-state rival NJIT on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 7 p.m.