Poor shooting in the second half was the West Chester women’s basketball team’s downfall on Saturday as they lost an important PSAC East contest to Millersville, 76-58.
After a back-and-forth first half that ended 37-34, West Chester came out completely flat in the second 20 minutes and saw the deficit grow quickly. Extremely poor shooting from beyond the three-point arc made matters worse, with the Lady Rams making just 1-of-11 attempts.
With West Chester unable to stop the bleeding, Millersville continued to make shots that the Rams could not, and the Marauders went on to win by an 18-point margin. West Chester made just nine shots in the entire second half, while Millersville made 14 shots including four three-pointers.
Interestingly, it was the Lady Rams’ top players who shot the poorest from the field. Senior forward Alex Lennon went 3-for-13 for only six points, although she did grab 10 rebounds. Meghan Kerrigan shot 2-for-12 including 1-for-4 from three-point range. Paige Elliott went 4-for-15 from the field and missed all three of her long-range attempts.
All in all, the Lady Rams shot an abysmal 31.2 percent from the field, and only 20 percent in the second half. They made four of 19 three-point attempts.
Millersville, on the other hand, had a pair of players score more than 20 points in Senada Mehmedovic and Aurielle Mosley. Mehmedovic made more three-pointers by herself (five) than the entire West Chester team.
The game represented a chance for West Chester to climb in the PSAC East standings, but it was a missed opportunity to say the least. The Lady Rams fell to fourth place in the division, two games behind Shippensburg, Millersville, and Bloomsburg, who are all locked in a tie for the top spot. After splitting the season series with the Marauders, West Chester will play both Ship and Bloomsburg one more time before the end of the regular season.
Despite the loss, the Lady Rams have already clinched a playoff spot in the PSAC East, as has Kutztown, who, as this issue went to press ,was in fifth place, a half-game behind West Chester. The top six teams in each eight-team division qualify. The top two teams earn a first-round bye, though, so earning one of those seeds will be the Lady Rams’ main goal over the last five games of the year. That means the games against Bloomsburg and Shippensburg are very important.
Earlier in the week, the Lady Rams had stretched their winning streak to four games with a comfortable 78-60 road win over Mansfield. It was the team’s talented freshman class that led the way, with Brittany Sicinski scoring 17 points, Dallas Ely adding 14 and Jasmen Clark scoring 10. It was Mansfield’s eighth-straight loss.
Ely scored five three-pointers, half of the 10 threes that the team made. The fact that the team could make 10 threes against Mansfield made its four against Millersville look all the more disappointing.
West Chester will wrap up its short road trip this Wednesday, as they travel to Kutztown for an 8 p.m. game. Then, the Lady Rams will return home to host Bloomsburg on Saturday afternoon in a matchup with many playoff implications.
If West Chester can win the game, it could put the team back into a decent position as they push for one of the first-round byes. The game the following week against Shippensburg will also be key. If the Lady Rams lose to Bloomsburg, though, it would all but squash any hopes they have of earning one of those all-important top two spots in the PSAC East division. And, of course, the Rams must first beat Kutztown on Wednesday.
Joey Samuel is a fourth-year student majoring in political science and Spanish. He can be reached at JS719745@wcupa.edu.