WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

The Forester women’s basketball team outlasted Cornerstone, 68-58, Saturday night at Platt Arena for their first win of the season. During Culler’s 36-year tenure, these two squads have met up on seven occasions with HU coming away with the win each time with all but one a double-digit victory.

Huntington led for all but 60 seconds of the contest early in the first quarter but the Golden Eagles (0-2) didn’t make it easy on their hosts. In addition to forcing 21 HU turnovers, CU also tracked down 21 of their own misses to never let Culler’s crew get too comfortable.

Konnor Gambrell’s putback of her own miss with just under two minutes left in the first quarter gave her team its first double-digit advantage of 16-5. Annie Seboe dropped in a three shortly after to up the lead to 14. The quick five-point burst capped off an 11-0 run on the way to a 20-7 difference by the first break.

The second quarter saw Cornerstone trim it to single digits early in the stanza and then again in each of the final two periods, but each time Huntington immediately countered.

A 7-3 CU run to start the second slashed the lead to just nine at 23-14 but three different Foresters answered the call. Seboe, Celeste Ryman and Maddy Robrock each found the bottom of the net to pad HU’s lead back to 12 at 29-17. The two teams traded buckets the rest of the half for a 12-point difference at intermission of 33-21.

The Golden Eagles were back at it to start the third. Three minutes in, they had cut the lead back to nine at 36-27. This time it was Emily Seboe to the rescue. The 5-11 forward scored six of her eight points in a 75-second stretch to bump her team’s lead up to 15 midway through the quarter.

Cornerstone continued their pestering ways. Their last surge was a rather slow burn as they spent the first half of the fourth quarter slashing the deficit in half to just seven points at 54-47 with 4:25 remaining.

An Allie Vaughn triple finally got the Foresters back on track, igniting a 13-2 run that plumped HU’s lead to 18 at 67-49 with just over a minute to go. It was the game’s largest disparity before the Golden Eagles went off for nine points in the final 60 seconds which included a half court heave that banked in at the buzzer to make for the final ten-point spread.

Vaughn scored eight of her team’s final 16 points on the way to dumping in 13 points for the game. She also corralled a team-best eight rebounds. Robrock topped the Foresters with 14 points while Ryman chipped in nine. The Seboe twins combined for 15 points with Annie’s seven proving a new career-high. Dazia Drake dished out a game-best six assists.

Olivia Kubik and Mackenzie Stien poured in 15 and 13 points respectively to lead Cornerstone.

The Foresters (1-1) are back at Platt Arena on Tuesday to host Oakland City at 6:00 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the men’s team who open their season against Governors State later that night.