The Oklahoma Christian University women’s basketball team lost to the Lady Rams of Texas Wesleyan University on Thursday, their first defeat in the last 19 home games.
After the Lady Eagles fell to crosstown rival University of Central Oklahoma on Tuesday, Junior guard Sydney Hill said she and the team were looking to get past the loss and come back to work.
“Wednesday we really focused on not dwelling on the loss because there’s so much season left to play and it was only our second game of the season against a solid opponent,” Hill said. “We mainly concentrated on getting ready for playing Texas Wesleyan.”
According to Hill, the team looked at the things it did right against UCO and talked about what they planned to do against the Lady Rams.
“We did out-rebound UCO, which was a huge positive because that was one thing Coach [Findley] has really emphasized us getting better at this year,” Hill said. “Moving on to Texas Wesleyan we knew they were a fast, drive-to-the-whole type of team. We were hoping to keep them out of the paint by packing it in and forcing them to shoot three pointers. We also knew they liked to pressure the ball so we needed to be able to stay calm and make good decisions when that happens.”
Oklahoma Christian was not completely successful with its game plan, said junior forward Aisha Martin.
“The game plan was excited to an extent,” Martin said. “Our game plan was to win the boards and defend the paint. We did a good job of defending the paint, but they were on fire from three-point range. We had some times were we didn’t do a good job of blocking out and other times when we did. Over all we could have done better but it wasn’t our worst.”
The Lady Eagles were down 42-38 at the half, after allowing the Lady Rams to knock down eight 3-pointers in the half.
The final score ended at 88-75 in Texas Wesleyan’s favor. Stacey Darnley led the Lady Rams with 25 points, including seven three-pointers.
Logan McKee led the team with a career-high 22 points, going 5-for-9 from the three-point line. McKenzie Stanford was next for the Lady Eagles with 17, while Hill contributed 15.
Martin said despite the leadership from the three top scorers, the team did not find its rhythm.
“Logan did a great job of facilitating tonight and Syd did a great job of attacking the paint,” Martin said. “As a team I feel like we never really got into a good constant flow. We had some spurts but it wasn’t ever consistent.”
Women’s Basketball Head Coach Stephanie Findley said she was proud of how well McKee has been playing and her effort to lead the game. She just believes some of the other girls aren’t catching on.
“Logan has been ready to play every game,” Findley said. “This is her senior season and she’s trying to take it out with a bang, but we can’t get anybody else on the boat right now. I feel like some of us are hesitating.”
There were some positive notes that came from the game, Martin said.
“We can only go up from here,” Martin said. “We have to keep our heads up and just figure things out. Some of us, definitely including me, have to figure out our shot and start hitting. We have to just keep pushing in practice and work our tails off to get to where we want to be.”
The Lady Eagles will return to action Saturday at 1 p.m., hosting former SAC rival University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
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