Box Score
Last season the John Carroll University women's basketball post players dominated Carnegie Mellon. Missy Spahar had 24 points and a career-high 16 rebounds while Beth Switzler added 20 points and six rebounds.

Fast forward exactly one year and the duo gave the Tartans more than they could handle once again during John Carroll's 93-79 win over Carnegie Mellon on Sunday afternoon inside the DeCarlo Varsity Center.

Spahar took over in the first half finishing with 17 points. The senior went 5-of-7 from the floor and 7-of-8 at the free throw line. She added seven points and three assists in the first stanza.

For the game Spahar finished with her first double-double of the season. She scored a career-high 32 points and collected 12 rebounds.

Switzler had a very active day in the post for John Carroll. The junior had 12 points in the first half and finished with 16 points and seven rebounds.

"They've been playing together since high school so they work really well with one another," said first-year head coach Kelly Morrone. "As upperclassmen they know to concentrate on defense and rebounding. (They) weather the storm when there are runs from the other team. Carnegie Mellon is a great team and they had some very, very good runs. Those two are just solid. They're a solid frontcourt. They do their job on the boards."

The Blue Streaks showed no ill effects from not having a game in 15 days. John Carroll came out of the gates on fire making five of their first six shots. For the first half JCU finished 59.4 percent from the field and 13-of-14 from the charity stripe.

"Today was a test," said Morrone. "It was a tough stretch with 33 practices and two games. We wanted to get some people in more and probably played the rotation a little bit more than we typically would in a game. I think it's important to do so. We have two more games this week (Mount Union on Wednesday and Ohio Northern on Saturday). It's going to be a busy week. We have Ohio Northern coming up, two top opponents in our conference. We're going to try to get some people some time and experience. They're ready to play someone different than ourselves. It was a good first out of three."

John Carroll's stifling defense also came out in full force coming up with 10 Tartan turnovers in the first half with seven coming via steals.

A pair of free throws by Gabrielle West cut John Carroll's lead to five at 28-23 with just over eight minutes remaining in the half. John Carroll found another gear outscoring Carnegie Mellon 25-13 for the remainder of the half.

"I think in games of runs like that its managing emotions," said Morrone. "Allie Lustig did a fantastic job managing possessions and taking care of it really well."

The Tartans kept chipping away at the Blue Streaks lead in the second half but a key 3-pointer by Daniella Rice with 5:38 remaining sealed the win.

Joining Spahar and Switzler with double figures in scoring were Lustig, Katlyn Spahar and Emily Taylor who all scored 11 points.

The women's basketball team remains at home to take on Mount Union to open OAC play on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 7:30 p.m. inside the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center.