Women’s hoops drops battle to Bearcats 70-52

Slideshow Included: The Georgia College women’s basketball team suffered a tough defeat when it fell to Lander University 70-52 on Jan. 28. 

Although it was another loss for GC’s women’s basketball, the young team is optimistic and understanding of its strengths and weaknesses.

Kendyl Wade | gcsunade.com

At the start of the game, the Bobcats were quick to take the lead with freshman guard Enisha Donley making a jump shot and a layup in the first minute of the game, giving GC a 4-0 lead.

Shortly after, the Bearcats began to accelerate their play and scored 15 points in a row over the Bobcats, taking a 15-4 lead.

Lander continued to increase the point gap over GC throughout the half and when the halftime buzzer rang, they had a 39-19 lead over the Bobcats.

When the second half began, the Bobcats managed to decrease Lander’s lead over them when a 3-pointer made by freshman guard Mikalyn DeFoor and jump shots made by Donley and freshman guard Shanteona Keys all in a row set the score at 41-26 with 16:58 remaining.

Both teams stepped up in the second half, but Lander once again took control of the game.

With 7:45 remaining in the game, the Bearcats regained the 20-point lead they had on Georgia College at the end of the first half when a layup gave them a 56-36 advantage over GC.

Although the Bobcats scored 33 points in the second half, Lander was able to maintain their lead and took a 70-52 win.

Donley was the highest scorer for GC, tacking a total of 12 points to the scoreboard and DeFoor and Keys each brought 10 points to game.

“We had a good game plan, and we know what we needed to do,” DeFoor said. “I think we have a lot of things to get better at though.” They know we are a young team, everyone is out to get us, out to pressures us, but I feel like we held up to them.

Although the young Bobcat team was unable to stand up against Lander, Smith had a positive outlook on it all.

“With a young team, you look for you small battles to win, we did a lot better playing stronger with the basketball, playing against a pressing team,” Smith said. “Overall I was pleased with the effort, and anytime you’re pleased with the effort, you can’t harp on the bad too much.”

The Bobcats know they have several components of their game that they need to improve on for the next game.

“We need to make sure we are extra strong with the ball, and making sure we are hustling through out the entire game,” Donley said. “Making sure we get to our spots.”

Smith said the players need to make better decisions.

“It comes with playing, we are going to work on the fundamentals in practice, but they really need experience,” Smith said. “When it is all said and done, we have to tip our hats off to Lander.”

The GC women’s basketball team’s next game is home on Feb. 4, at 1:30 p.m. against Georgia Southwestern State University.

“That’s the great thing about it. You get knocked down, you have the opportunity to get right back up for the next game,” Smith said.

Posted by Marilyn Ferrell on Feb 2 2012. Filed under Lead stories, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.