Morgan's career game not enough in Pride 79-75 loss at Culver-Stockton

CANTON, Mo. - With plenty of Heart Tournament inplications on the final day of the regular season, the Clarke University women's basketball team fell in a road rematch against Culver-Stockton College on Saturday afternoon in Canton, Mo.

Despite a slow start in each of the first two quarters for the Pride, they were able to pull to within a possession by the end of each down 21-19 after 10 minutes then heading into the halftime locker room at a 38-37 deficit before winning the third quarter to enter the final frame up one point of their own at 57-56.

Leading 67-61 early in the fourth, CU was only able to hit a pair of three pointers for almost the entirety of the final 7:10 of the game, allowing the Wildcats to come back and take a 71-70 lead with just under 90 seconds to go, with both of those makes coming from freshmen Jessica Morgan and Abby Hollis as Morgan also hit a layup to make it 77-75 with 17 seconds left, but Culver-Stockton was able to hit the free throws necessary to maintain their lead.

Morgan and Hollis along with fellow member of the bench unit in Breckan Stewart were thrust into increased minutes than their typical season average due to three starters in Hailey Walters, Josie Potts, and Camdyn Kay all fouling out with Walters and Kay fouling out in the fourth quarter while Potts had to exit in the third.

With Morgan's increased role, she took significant advantage offensively to score a career-high 22 points on 8-of-12 (66.7%) shooting from the field including knocking down five three pointers with Walters also knocking down five triples on her way to 17 points despite fouling out while Kay also produce double figures before fouling out at a 14-point game on 6-of-10 (60%) shooting from the field.

Junior Zoe Kennedy also finished in double digits with her own 14-point performance on 5-of-11 (45.5%) shooting from the field while adding four rebounds and two assists with the rest of the CU players to step foot on the floor outside of those four double figure scorers combining for just eight points.

The Wildcats were outshot from the field by Clarke but the foul situations came up crucial to their point production as they went to the free throw line 29 times and only missed two of those attempts while the Pride only attempted 16 free throws and hit nine despite shooting over 50 percent from the field and three point range in the game.

With the larger Heart of America Athletic Conference field and an unbalanced scheduled the Heart standings for postseason tournament contention was calculated via a point system, as this final loss put Clarke on the outside looking in at the ninth team in the standings despite their 11-9 record being better than Central Methodist's 10-10 record and holding a head-to-head win in the lone matchup between the Pride and Eagles.

That wil result in the Clarke women's basketball 2025-26 season coming to an end at a 15-13 overall record and that 11-9 Heart record as they expect to return all but Walters to the 2026-27 team in a year where the Pride earned four more wins overall and two more wins in conference play.