Wild ride
Lady Lion hopes thrills continue in postseason

By BRAD YOUNG
Collegian Sports Writer

Missy Masley stood in the glum Rec Hall corridor, her goose-bumped arms folded tightly against her thin torso. The smile she frequently flashed showed that the cold of the hallway did not really bother her.

Masley had just closed her final regular season as a forward for the Lady Lion basketball team, and did so with quite a bang, scoring 21 points and snaring 14 rebounds in an 83-70 win over Ohio State. The victory clinched the third conference title Penn State has won in Masley's five years at Penn State.

"A thrill," she said, searching for the right words to describe her Penn State career. "It's just been one heck of a ride."

That ride started for Masley back in 1990, when the Farmington, N.Y., native was a wide-eyed freshman. She played in just six games before she was lost for the season with a shoulder injury.

A medical redshirt gave her another year of eligibilty. Her teammates gave her the opportunity to play on a team that won an Atlantic 10 championship and was the first Lady Lion squad to be voted No. 1 in the nation.

Last season, Masley played on another No. 1 team, starting all 31 games for the Big Ten championship squad that advanced to the elite eight of the NCAA tournament.

She entered this season as a fifth-year senior, ready to contribute to a team hoping to repeat its title run. But when the Lady Lions struggled earlier this season, so did Masley. She was yanked from the starting lineup 10 games into the campaign because of poor shooting.

"When (point guard) Tina Nicholson passes you the ball, and you miss her assist, it's like, 'Aw man,' " Masley said, emphasizing the "aw man" with her head and shoulders. "That was what was frustrating. Not necessarily missing the shots -- it was letting my teammates down."

Masley may have been concerned about letting down her teammates Sunday when the Buckeyes held her scoreless in the first half.

But in an 11-minute stretch of a standout second stanza, Masley scored 18 points and grabbed several offensive rebounds.

"Her teammates took care of getting her the ball, and if she wasn't getting the ball she was getting it off the glass," Ohio State Coach Nancy Darsch said. "She just took the game over there for a little while."

In conquering the Buckeyes, Masley also conquered a personal milestone. With just over 12 minutes remaining in the game, Masley scored her 12th point of the game and the 1,000th of her career.

"I didn't even think about it," Masley said of the accomplishment. "The most important thing is that we won. It didn't matter if I had negative 15 points, just so we won."

She scored a few more than that in Penn State's other win last weekend, a 73-64 triumph at Michigan State. She notched a career-high 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in that contest.

Her weekend efforts pushed her season averages up to 14.6 points and 9 boards per game, and earned her Big Ten Player of the Week honors.

But with the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments looming closely on the Lady Lions' horizon, Portland said Masley still has much work to do.

"It's not over," Portland said. "That's all I say to them when I hug them when they're a senior. It's not over. Don't let it be over."

For Masley, that theory extends beyond just the painted lines of the basketball court. The biology major will take medical school entrance exams after the Lady Lions' postseason ends.

"Basketball means the world to me right now," she said. "But after basketball, you've got to move on."

For now though, one heck of a ride continues.