State College, Pa., Jan. 9, 2001 --

State College coach Bethany Irwin led her Lady Little Lions to a convincing 72-40 victory over visiting Indian Valley tonight.

The win ended a two-game losing streak to the Lady Warriors who owned the only blemish on State College's regular season schedule a year ago.

State College made it look like a blowout leaping to an 11-0 advantage in the opening five minutes of the game and building an 18-8 advantage by the end of the first quarter.

The Lions opened the second stanza with another seven point run then outscored Indian Valley 9-3 in the period's last six minutes and headed to the locker room with a 34-13 advantage.

That wasn't enough for State College coach Bethany Irwin. "They weren't going to quit," Irwin said. "We thought it was going to be a really tough game. They've got some great outside shooters and they're always scrappy. We knew they came back against Lewistown. They were down by 14 and went up by one with a minute to go, so we couldn't stop."

Whatever Irwin said at halftime prompted several Lions who normally aren't headliners to answer the call.

	Rebecca Shore	Liz Gabrielle	Erika Conner

Senior Rebecca Shore combined six points with 10 rebounds and junior Liz Gabrielle also had six points and a number of assists that led to layups by teammates.

But it was junior Erika Conner's night to shine. Conner led State College's dominance on the boards with 14 rebounds to go along with eight points. "I am so pleased with Erika's performance tonight," Irwin said. "I knew that was in her the whole time and I'm so glad it finally came out."

Irwin also liked the performance of starting point guard Lisa Younkin. "I think she had a great game setting the tempo of the offense with some great passes and playing good defense," Irwin said. Scoring depth helped the Lady Little Lions. Senior Katie Glusko had a game-high 16 points but she had help on offense from eight of her teammates as Irwin used every player who dressed tonight.

Indian Valley's scoring leaders with 10 points each were Mandy Laub and Jen Quay.

State College improved to 9-2, 2-0 in the league. Indian Valley's record is now 9-4 and 5-3 in conference play.

State College travels to Huntingdon in its next game Friday night then is back home Saturday night with Lower Dauphin. Indian Valley is home with Altoona on Saturday.