MARIETTA, Ohio — The Marietta College women's basketball team got off to a quick start and led the whole way as they came away with a conference victory over Mount Union, 66-55, on Wednesday (Jan. 17) evening. Marietta improves to 11-5 on the season and 6-3 in the OAC. The Purple Raiders fall to 7-9 overall and 4-5 in conference games.
"With how Mount Union plays defense, we needed some of our guards to step up, and
Paige Tolson (Guysville, Ohio/Federal Hocking) picked a great night to step up for us," said Marietta head coach
Kole Vivian. "She was able to get us great looks on the offensive end. We still have a lot of things we can do better, but I am happy we are starting to right the ship after our uneven play to start the new year".
Both teams traded baskets to begin the game as
Olivia Gribble (Irwin, Pa./Norwin) scored on a driving layup to start and Makayla Dunkle answered with a layup on the other end.
Makenzie Wilson's (Wapakoneta, Ohio/Wapakoneta) layup at the 6:27 mark started the Pioneers on a 12-0 run, which included four points from Tolson and a trey from Gribble. After missing on five consecutive shots, Mount Union finally got a bucket from Hailey Haywood, but
Ally Grake (Morrow, Ohio/Little Miami) nailed a three-point in the closing seconds and the Pioneers led after one quarter of play, 19-6.
The second quarter started slow again for both teams, but Dunkle's three-pointer at the 7:05 mark cut the lead to 23-11. After nearly two scoreless minutes,
Madison Cecil (Centerburg, Ohio/Highland) converted on a floating jumper to extend the lead back to 14 points. After some traded buckets, Elizabeth Mason scored on a layup only to be answered with a layup from Tolson and Marietta led 31-17 going into halftime.
Mount Union started on an 8-0 run to begin the third quarter. They got three-pointers from Reese Triplett and Ali Hudik to cut the lead to six points, causing the Pioneers to call a quick timeout. Marietta answered with five points from Tolson to cut the Purple Raider momentum. Later in the quarter, Cecil hit from three-point range to extend the Pioneer lead to 16. Mount Union hit a couple of shots from the paint from Audrey Livesay to close the quarter but still found themselves down 49-33 after three.
Mount Union attempted a fourth quarter comeback as Addi Mucci hit a trey and Hudik nailed a pull-up jumper, cutting the lead to 51-38. Minutes later, Hudik's trey and Mason's driving layup got the deficit to single digits, but a 9-0 Pioneer run put the game out of reach. Mount Union could not bridge the gap and the Pioneers cruised to victory, 66-55.
Tolson finished with a career high 24 points and Gribble finished with 11 points. Levering led the Pioneers with 13 rebounds and Wilson finished with seven rebounds.
Mason led the Purple Raiders with 19 points and four assists and also collected five rebounds.
Marietta will return to the Ban Johnson Arena this Saturday (Jan. 20) as they host Heidelberg University in the first game of the Winter Weekend doubleheader. Tipoff is scheduled for 1 p.m., with the men's game following at 3 p.m.
Fans can follow all the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on X and Instagram.
