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IUP ended a brief two-game losing skid and wrapped up its second straight PSAC West championship with a 68-52 win over Lock Haven Saturday at Memorial Field House. IUP went 9-3 in the PSAC West and tied California for first place in the division standings. Since the teams split during the season, the next tiebreaker was head-to-head against the third place team, Clarion. The Crimson Hawks won both games against Clarion and the Vulcans split to give IUP the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. As the top seed in the Western Division, IUP will get a third shot at Shippensburg on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Raiders have proven to be its nemesis this year, winning both regular season games, an 88-75 win in Indiana and a 77-50 victory last Wednesday at Shippensburg. Clarion will visit California in the other Western quarterfinal on Tuesday. Should IUP defeat Shippensburg, it would host the PSAC Final Four on Friday and Saturday. The Crimson Hawks also set a new school record for most wins in the regular season by finishing 24-4 overall. The previous mark came in 1999-00 when IUP went 23-3 before losing to Millersville in both the PSAC and East Region semifinals. In the win over Lock Haven, all 12 players on the active roster got into the scorebook, led by Jahzinga Tracey with 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting from the field. Kierstin Filla and Kylie Miller both scored nine points, with Filla adding five assists and four steals and Miller tying Marcia Mpfumo with a team-high eight rebounds. The Crimson Hawks never trailed in the game and turned an 11-10 lead with 12:19 left in the first half into a 27-13 advantage six minutes later after a 16-3 run. A basket by Eryn Withers with six seconds left in the half gave IUP a 36-20 lead at the break, and the Crimson Hawks were never threatened over the final 20 minutes.
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