After a stellar 77-72 win on the road against Charleston, the Shepherd men’s basketball team continued the pre-Christmas part of their schedule by traveling to Erie in Pennsylvania to play Gannon, a member of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.

After falling, 74-56, to Gannon, the Rams had a 5-3 overall record and were 2-2 in the Mountain East Conference.

The only games left on the 2014 portion of the schedule were non-conference games against Davis & Elkins (on Wednesday, Dec. 17) and then tonight (Friday, Dec. 19) against Penn State Mont Alto. Both games were at the Butcher Center on campus with tonight’s game scheduled for a 7 p.m. start.

The Mountain East Conference schedule gets underway in earnest on Saturday, Jan. 3 when the Rams face Notre Dame (Ohio) at the Butcher Center at about 4 p.m., and come right back on Monday, Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Butcher Center to play Urbana.

Morgan McDonald, a 6-foot-6 senior forward, leads the Rams in scoring after eight games with his 18 points per game average.

The Shepherd women are 7-2 after their first nine games, recently improving their record with a three-game winning streak, the last victory being at the Butcher Center when the Rams won, 94-82, over Shippensburg.

Shepherd had an impressive 80-76 win in Charleston over the Golden Bears in a Mountain East Conference game. Shepherd is currently 4-0 in conference games. The wins have come against Glenville and Charleston on the road and West Virginia Wesleyan and West Virginia State at home.

Five players are scoring in double figures for the Rams.

Freshman Morgan Arden leads the tightly bunched scorers with her 13.7 a game average. Right behind Arden are Cara Mason at 11.3, Alex Weakland with her 10.8 norm, Rachel Johnson at 10.4 and Liz Myers at 10.2.

Shepherd’s last game before the Christmas break was at Chowan (North Carolina) this past Wednesday.

Beginning the first week in January, the women will play Notre Dame in the Butcher Center at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 3 and then see Urbana on Monday, Jan. 5 at 5:30 p.m. at the same site. Those two games are conference games.