Pride clinch program-best regular season finish with road win at Peru State

PERU, Neb. - In their final true road game of the 2023-24 sesaon, the Clarke University women's basketball team closed out the regular season with an 87-73 win over Peru State College on Saturday afternoon.

With that win, the Pride clinch the best regular season in program history with a 27-1 overall record to finish Heart play 23-1, clinching the Heart Tournament No. 1 seed and the outright regular season championship last week in their final two home games.

On Saturday, CU gradually grew their lead through the first three quarters, capped off by their 31-20 advantage in the third where the Pride shot 11-for-18 (61.1%) from the field and hit four three pointers, three of which came off of the hand of Taylor Norris as she scored nine or her 12 in the period.

Clarke did not have many statistical advantages as the Bobcats had a better overall shooting percentage than CU at 47.4 to 44.8 and the Pride struggled with turnovers, committing 17 that led to 26 PSC points where Peru State only turned it over eight times for 11 Clarke points but the Pride dominanted the battle on the boards, grabbing 37 rebounds to just 18 for Peru State.

Both teams had players finish with 20 or more points as Clarke's Mya Merschman finished with a game-high 21 on 7-for-13 (53.8%) shooting while grabbing seven rebounds as Kaylan Larry of the Bobcats had 20 points on 8-for-18 (44.4%) shooting with two rebounds, two steals, and an assist.

Three of the other four Pride starters also finished in double figures with Nicole McDermott finishing with 14 points and eight rebounds, Maci Kuchta scoring 12 and grabbing three rebounds, and Taylor Haase one rebound shy of a double-double at 10 points and nine rebounds while also adding four assists, tying Izzie Peterson's game-high in helpers as Peterson added seven points as that fifth member of the starting lineup.

Now heading back to the postseason, Clarke women's basketball will prepare to host the first round of the Heart Tournament in the Kehl Center on Wednesday, Feb. 28 for an expected 7:00 p.m. CT tip against the No. 8 seed, which is yet to be determined with games still going on at the time of this article posting.