Pearson's Record Day Leads Women's Basketball Over Charleston, 66-54

Sunday, January 3

Daskalakis Athletic Center

2:00 p.m.

Drexel University

5-7, 1-0

College of Charleston

5-7, 0-1

Col. of Charleston

DREXEL

Photo by: Greg Carroccio

Pearson's Record Day Leads Women's Basketball Over Charleston, 66-54

1/3/2016 4:01:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA – Rachel Pearson dropped a career-high 28 points, including a Drexel women's basketball program-record-tying eight three-pointers, as the Dragons defeated the College of Charleston in their first Colonial Athletic Association game of the season, 66-54. Pearson scored 19 after halftime, hitting five of her threes following intermission as the Dragons led nearly the entire way to win their league opener for a fifth consecutive season.

Sarah Curran and Jessica Pellechio added 11 points each for the Dragons, who hit 15 three-pointers as a team. Meghan Creighton dished out 11 assists, a season high and two off the program record which she already shares. She also scored six points and did not turn the ball over. The Dragons shot 43.9 percent (25-for-57) from the floor while hitting a nearly identical 42.9 percent (15-for-35) from beyond the arc.

Pearson, who recorded 20-point games in consecutive contests for the first time in her career after scoring 22 at Syracuse on Tuesday night, tied Narissa Suber and Ola Snytsina for Drexel's single game record with her eight treys. Snytsina set the mark on Feb. 26, 2004, while Suber matched it on Nov. 29, 2006. Pearson's 17 threes attempted set a new program record.

After trading baskets and leads with the Cougars for much of the first quarter, the Dragons asserted themselves with an 11-2 run spanning the end of the first and beginning of the second quarters. Drexel got a pair of three pointers from Rachel Pearson during the run, two of her three in the first half. Sarah Curran and Alexis Smith added jumpers and Smith a free throw that extended a three point lead to 12, 25-13.

Pearson's nine points led the way in the first half. She was helped out by five assists from Meghan Creighton, who knocked down a pair of three pointers herself to net her six points. Jessica Pellechio also scored six in the first half as the Dragons drained seven from long range before intermission. The Dragons forced 13 Cougars turnovers in the opening half, converting those into 11 Drexel points. They would force six more College of Charleston giveaways in the second half.

Pearson, who now averages 16.0 points per game in five career matchups with the Cougars, opened the scoring in the second half with a three-pointer at the 6:23 mark after both teams got off to cold starts. Pellechio answered a Breanna Bolden jumper with a three of her own, and after Bolden and Sarah Curran exchanged jumpers, another pair of Pearson long bombs extended Drexel's lead to 17, 45-28, with 2:15 to play in the third quarter. The Cougars would score four in a row before Curran's lay-in at the buzzer sent the Dragons into the fourth quarter sporting a 47-32 advantage.

Drexel maintained its double-digit advantage throughout the fourth quarter, with Pearson sinking three of the four attempts she took from beyond the arc in the period. Her eighth and final three-pointer, with 2:38 to play, put Drexel on top 66-47, its largest lead of the afternoon. As a team, the Dragons hit seven of 12 field goals in the fourth quarter and five of seven from long range to ice the game away.

The dragons sank 13 three-pointers in their loss at Syracuse on Tuesday night, their highest total to that point since drilling 14 against Mount St. Mary's on Jan. 3, 2008. That proved to be merely an appetizer as the Dragons' 15 threes on Sunday marked their most since a program-record 18 against Northeastern on Feb. 17, 2006. Drexel now has knocked down 10 or more three-pointers in five games this year after not reaching that total once all of last season.

Sunday's win improves the Dragons' record at the Daskalakis Athletic Center to 4-1 for the year. Another home game looms for the Dragons before they make their first road trip of the Colonial Athletic Association season. Drexel will host Northeastern on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. looking to move to 2-0 in conference play before embarking on its first CAA road trip of the year next Sunday at William & Mary.