Lady Jackets Eye Matchup with Rival, Bluffton University

After coming off of a great win against Mount St. Joe, we could not celebrate too long because we had to prepare for Earlham. Even though Earlham is ranked last in our league we knew as a team we could not take them lightly and we had to be ready. On Wednesday, Jan. 12, we played Earlham at home.

We came out strong and finished the first half with an 18-point lead after shooting 64.0 percent from the floor. In the second half, we came out a little dull and let Earlham back in the game, but they only came within nine points with nine minutes left in the game. We went on a run and pulled away with the win with a score of 100-83. Our team finished the night with a 55.0 shooting percentage, which was the team’s best since December of 2004. After this game our league record became 4-3.

On January 15, we traveled to Franklin College for our next league matchup. We started the game off exchanging lead changes, but towards the end of the half we struggled with our free throws, going four-for-13, which caused us to be down by four at half time. At the half our team talked about making free throws, attacking Franklin’s defense and stopping them from penetrating in the middle of our defense.

Down by four with five minutes left in the game, we let up and took ourselves out of the game. Turnovers contributed to our 73-60 loss to a very good team in our conference. We know we can not dwell on our loss at Franklin, because we had to start preparing ourselves for our archrival, Bluffton University.

Brooke Zachrich, Nia Banks, Maggie Neanen, Erica King

Lady Jackets Blog Midway through their 2010-11 Campaign

The past few weeks of winter break, we have been working a lot on our defense and transition offense. That work played an important part in our win against Wooster on Dec. 30. Because of our tight defense, we held them to 38 points.

We then wanted to carry that over to our first conference game back from winter break with Transylvania. We came out shooting cold for the second game in a row, and that played a big role in our conference loss to Transy. This was a tough loss for us, but we came back into practice and worked exceptionally hard to prepare for our next conference matchup at Mount St. Joe. 

We traveled to MSJ wanting nothing but a victory, and that’s what we got. We trailed by single digits most of the game, and with under a minute to go we got our first lead and held on for a big road win. Our conference record on the road is now 3-0. Our next game is on Wednesday against a newcomer to our league, Earlham College. We are looking to win our first home conference game of the season and bump our conference record to 4-3.

In the past few weeks we have had a lot of free time with it being winter break, and being the only people on campus. We have used this time for team bonding and getting to know each other better. We also have eaten at the President of Defiance College’s house two times. It was nice to get off campus and enjoy some great food!  

The team had an outstanding 3.17 grade point average last semester, and with classes starting this week, hopefully we can do just as well or even better this spring semester!

Brooke Zachrich, Nia Banks, Maggie Neanen, Erica King