ROCHESTER, Mich. – The first of four consecutive home games, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies will welcome the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons to the O'rena on Thursday, January 26 at 7 p.m.

Splitting a two-game road swing against the Detroit Mercy Titans on January 18 and IUPUI Jaguars four days later, Oakland will enter play at 10-9 and 5-5 in the Horizon League, good for a sixth-place tie with the Milwaukee Panthers in the conference standings.

Thursday will be the third of a four-game road trip for Purdue Fort Wayne, who is 7-13 and in eighth place in the league at 4-6. The Mastodons did pick up a victory in their last outing, a 72-55 triumph over the Wright State Raiders on January 22.

This will be the second and final regular season meeting between these two teams this year, as the Golden Grizzlies fell behind early but came back to beat the Mastodons, 66-64, in Fort Wayne on December 4 for their first league victory of the campaign.

Hitting five 3-pointers, junior Linda van Schaik led Oakland with 21 points that day, with freshman Brooke Quarles-Daniels and senior Breanne Beatty also reaching double figures with 10 and 12, respectively.

Junior Amellia Bromenschenkel and senior Shayla Sellers paced Purdue Fort Wayne with 15 points apiece, with sophomores Jazzlyn Linbo and Ryin Ott both also chipping in at least 10.

In double-digits in six-straight contests, Quarles-Daniels is the Golden Grizzlies' leading scorer at 11.5 points-per-game and is second on the team in rebounding with an average of 5.1.

Junior forward Alexis Johnson, who leads the way on the glass at 5.5 rebounds per game, and Beatty are Oakland's two other players averaging double figures.

Making her 100^th career start in the January 22 loss to IUPUI, Beatty has tallied at least 15 points in each of the last three contests, including a career-high-tying 21 in the victory over Detroit Mercy.

PURDUE FORT WAYNE RUNDOWN
Led by second-year head coach Maria Marchesano, the Mastodons have two players who have started all 20 games this season, Linbo and Sellers.

Having appeared in all 20 contests and started 19 of them, Bromenschenkel narrowly missed joining that list, but the Mendota, Illinois native is Purdue Fort Wayne's leading scorer at 12.2 points-per-game, the only Mastodon averaging double-digits.

Sellers is next up at 8.7 points-per-contest, followed by junior guard Destinee Marshall at seven and senior Sylare Starks at 6.9.

Three Mastodons pull down between four and 4.8 rebounds-per-game, with Bromenschenkel representing the high end.

As a team, Purdue Fort Wayne is eighth in the Horizon League at 60.1 points-per-game this season, 6.2 behind the Golden Grizzlies' 66.3, which is good for sixth in the conference.

TELEVISION AND LIVE STATS LINKS
Thursday's action will air live on ESPN+ (subscription required) and can be accessed here.

Additionally, the Live Stats are available at this link.

SEASON-LONG STORYLINES

NEW FACES FOR GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Faced with the graduations of Kahlaijah Dean, Kayla Luchenbach and Brianna Breedy, who combined to average 28.7 points and 9.9 rebounds last season, the Golden Grizzlies brought in a trio of diversely talented transfers in Raquel Ferrer-Bernad, Alexis Johnson and Linda van Schaik.

A Southfield A&T Warriors graduate, Johnson is a junior forward who played three seasons in Conference USA (C-USA) for the Marshall Thundering Herd, while Ferrer-Bernad is a graduate student point guard who came from a different C-USA program, the Florida International Panthers.

van Schaik, another junior, joined Oakland by way of the Sun Belt Conference's Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and projects to provide the team with another 3-point shooting threat.

On top of the program's work in the transfer portal, the Golden Grizzlies' 2022 recruiting class features a couple of high-upside players in guard Brooke Quarles-Daniels, a Miss Michigan Basketball candidate a year ago from L'Anse Creuse North, and Lianna Baxter, a 6-foot-1 forward who starred at Oconto and is one of the top-100 scorers in Wisconsin high school history.

BREANNE BEATTY HEADLINES GROUP OF RETURNING PLAYERS
Appearing in all 83 of the program's games over the last three seasons, and starting all but two of them, senior guard/forward Breanne Beatty was named to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team on October 18.

The pride of Worthington, Ohio, Beatty is Oakland's leading returning scorer at 9.7 points-per-game in 2021-22.

In addition to Beatty, guards Kennedie Montue and Aaliyah McQueen and forward Miriam Ibezim, all of whom of sophomores, are back with the program and are in line to contribute significantly right from the season's opening tip.

JEFF TUNGATE ENTERS 10^TH SEASON
Named the eighth head coach in program history on July 16, 2013, the 2022-23 campaign is the 10^th with Jeff Tungate at the helm.

Third on the school's all-time wins list with 126, Tungate and four-year veteran assistant Crystal Davis made some changes to the coaching staff ahead of this season, bringing in Golden Grizzly Hall of Famer and former Mercyhurst Lakers head coach Deanna Richard and Tim Webb, who has extensive coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate levels in Michigan, as assistant coaches.