Lakers Close Season Saturday At Gannon :: Mercyhurst enters the contest with a 7-19 record.

Feb. 21, 2008

THE MATCHUP: Mercyhurst's first season under head coach Deanna Richard comes to a close Saturday at rival Gannon for a 5:30 p.m. contest. Gannon is 42-24 in 66 all-time meetings, including an 85-68 win earlier this year.
LAST GAME AGAINST GANNON: Amy Achesinski scored 25 points to lead all scorers but the Lakers were unable to build on a strong start to the game in an 85-68 loss. Mercyhurst jumped out to an early 10-3 lead but Gannon took over nine minutes into the contest and extended the lead to nine points by the half. Samantha Loadman added 13 points, six rebounds and two steals, and Paris Pugliese tossed in 10.
THE COACHES: Mercyhurst head coach Deanna Richard is in her first season at Mercyhurst, currently posting a 7-19 record. She has a career mark of 68-111, including a record of 61-92 in six seasons at Division III Olivet College. Gannon's Cleve Wright picked up his 100th career win earlier this year and is 103-68 in six years at Gannon. He led the Golden Knights to a 25-6 record a year ago and their first ever GLIAC Championship.
SCOUTING MERCYHURST: Mercyhurst closes out the 2007-08 season today after showing a lot of potential for the future. The team went 3-1 against Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) opponents, the conference that it will join next year, and developed a lot of young players. Freshmen Amy Achesinski and Samantha Loadman are two of the top rookies in the GLIAC and Achesinski ranks third in the country in scoring among freshmen and first in field-goal percentage. Loadman is one of the top three-point shooters in the country and has the ability to score at will. The Lakers do not have a senior on the team and starting guard Stephanie Prischak is the only junior to play this year.
SCOUTING GANNON: Although Gannon and Mercyhurst have already met once this year, this Golden Knights team is a different squad from the one that beat the Lakers. Leading scorer Kim Vargas has been lost for the season and her 16.2 points and 6.0 rebounds will need to be found in other sources. Tiffany Crocker has played 30+ minutes in each game since Vargas' injury and Ashley Lowdermilk and Kristina Freeman have gone over the 30-minute mark in three of four games as head coach Cleve Wright leans on his starters for more minutes. Gannon still has plenty of scoring punch as Freeman averages 15.5 points and Lowdermilk averages 10.6. The Golden Knights rank second in the GLIAC at 71.6 points per game and the squad leads the conference with 14.6 offensive rebounds per game.

QUICK HITS
• Mercyhurst is playing its final season as a member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (GLIAC) before moving to the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) next year. Mercyhurst went 3-1 against PSAC schools this year, picking up wins over Mansfield, Edinboro and Lock Haven, coupled with a loss to Slippery Rock.
• Freshman Amy Achesinski scored a career-high 38 points in the team's 93-73 loss to Wayne State. She was the first Mercyhurst player to score at least 30 in a game since Amy Galla scored 32 against Lake Superior State in 1991. The 38-point game was the highest scoring individual game for a Mercyhurst player in over 15 years.
• Achesinski ranks 13th in all of NCAA Division II in field goal percentage (58.0 percent). She is the only freshman ranked in the top 60 in that category. She also ranks 54th in the country in scoring (16.9 points per game) and is third among all freshmen nationally, behind only Florida Southern's Chelsea Johnson (18.4 points per game) and Queens' Amanda Bartlett (17.9 points per game).
• As a team, the Lakers are on pace to break the single season school records for field goal percentage and three-point percentage. Mercyhurst is shooting 45.8 percent from the field and 37.4 percent from three-point range this year, ranking second in the GLIAC in that category.
• Freshman Samantha Loadman has a shot to break the single season record for three-point percentage. At 45.9 percent, she trails Amy Galla's record (46.2 percent in 2000-01) by just 0.3 percent. She ranks second in the conference in three-point shooting, just ahead of teammate Stephanie Prischak, who ranks third at 43.2 percent.
• Stephanie Prischak is the all-time leader in career free-throw percentage at Mercyhurst. At 83.3 percent (115-of-138), she ranks just ahead of Tricia Mahoney (82.7 percent from 1979-83).