Varner's career high pushes VU women to victory

Ashley Varner wasn't keeping track of how many points she scored Saturday afternoon, just that the shots were going in for a change.

The Valparaiso senior had a career-high 26 points and added 13 rebounds as the Crusaders won their first road Horizon League game of the season with a 66-48 victory over Cleveland State.

Varner has been struggling with shooting in recent games and scored more points Saturday than she had in her last three contests combined.

"I didn't even realize how many I had, I was just focused on getting out of this slump," Varner said. "It's great to have a career high, but that wasn't even something that was on my mind."

The Crusaders (6-16, 2-9) used a dominating performance in the paint to jump out to a 14-point halftime lead. Cleveland State struggled in every aspect of offense in the first half and went more than seven minutes without a field goal until Honesty King's 3-pointer with 21 seconds left in the half gave the Vikings 13 points at the break.

"We had a good first half in terms of keeping their scoring down and then I thought we came out really good in the second half," Valparaiso coach Keith Freeman said. "They started to turn up the heat, but I thought we made some plays to answer their runs."

Varner scored 20 of her 26 points in the second half, with nine coming from the free-throw line. The senior never came out of the game in the second half and made five or her seven shots from the field.

"It felt great to get this win," Varner said. "There was a lot of frustration after we came close on Thursday night. The team did a great job of moving the ball, and we played a strong game today."

The Crusaders scored more than half of their points (36) in the paint and added another 24 points from the free-throw line. Tabitha Gerardot had 12 points and eight rebounds, while Ieva Jansone added a career-high 12 points.

"Our 3-pointers were down, and we were more aggressive moving to the basket," Freeman said. "I was proud of our rebounding, thought we were very aggressive on the offensive boards."

Shalonda Winton led the Vikings (8-14, 3-8) with 28 points and seven rebounds.