Second half shooting woes lead to road loss for Pride

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Coming down the home stretch of the 2024-25 regular season, the Clarke University women's basketball team dropped their Wednesday night road game to Mount Mercy University by a final score of 80-55.

Never leading throughout the entirety of the game, the Pride were able to play the opening 20 minutes also never trailing by more than nine points and cut the lead to a two-point game just before halftime but a Taylor Rose buzzer beater made it a 34-29 advantage for MMU heading into the locker room.

The second half was really when the Mustangs took control of the game, first in the third quarter as they would go up as many as 16 points then outscore CU 20-9 in the fourth quarter behind some rough shooting from the field for Clarke as they would go 3-for-16 (18.8%) from the field and 1-for-8 (12.5%) from three point range.

Clarke finished the game shooting 32.8 percent from the field as the Mount Mercy bench and paint scoring were where the Mustangs took advantage in the contest as they outscored CU 40-18 in the paint with the MMU bench providing 19 points compared to just four bench points for the Pride.

Four members of the Mustangs lineup scored in double figures led by 21 from Claudia Vanzant as she would add a game-high 15 rebounds for a double-double while Annika Headington scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds then both Madison Skelton and Malie Marfil had 11 points apiece.

For the Pride, Zoe Kennedy had 15 points on 5-of-9 (55.6%) shooting and grabbed seven boards while both Sydni Morris and Maci Kuchta had 12-point games out of the starting lineup for CU.

The final game of the regular season will take place this Saturday, Feb. 22, when they travel to Peru, Neb. to face Peru State College with a 12:00 p.m. CT scheduled tip between the Pride and Bobcats.