Goshen, IN — It was another rough stretch for the Goshen College women’s basketball team this weekend, as the Leafs dropped a pair of games in the eighth annual Goshen College Classic. The Leafs opened the tournament with a 46-54 loss to Aquinas College on Friday night, and dropped a 58-65 decision to Indiana Tech in the tournament’s consolation game Saturday afternoon. It was the first time in the tournament’s history that Goshen did not advance to the championship contest, as well as the first time the Leafs came away winless from the four-team event. Having lost six of its last seven games, Goshen head coach Steve Wiktorowski said he hopes the brief holiday break will allow his team to recuperate and re-focus for the second half of the season.

“We have battled offensive inconsistency throughout the last several games, and that has made it tough,” Wiktorowski said. “We go through long periods where we can’t execute or we turn the ball over too much, and that puts a lot of pressure on our defense to hold the opposition almost scoreless until our offense gets untracked. This is extremely difficult to do with our schedule both in and out of the conference, and it has resulted in some losses. We just need to keep battling until we get everyone healthy and executing properly.”

Goshen (7-10, 1-3) used a tremendous defensive effort in the first half of Friday’s tournament opener to claim a 22-21 lead over Aquinas at the intermission. Despite shooting just eight of 26 from the field (30.8 percent) in the first half, the Leafs were able to stifle the Saints into an even worse eight for 36 effort from the floor (22.2 percent). The neck and neck affair continued into the second half, where the two teams traded leads until the 6:28 mark, when Aquinas went up by a 38-39 score. The Saints would then go on a 13 to two run over the game’s next three and a half minutes, generating a 51-40 lead that Goshen could not come back from. The Leafs were able to close the gap to five points — a 46-51 defecit with 1:06 remaining — but could get no closer.

A season-high 48 rebounds — including 17 offensive — was not enough to counteract a season-low 25.5 percent shooting clip for Goshen (14 for 55 from the field), as the Leafs defense could not keep up the first-half pace. Aquinas knocked in 14 of 27 second-half attempts (51.9 percent) to advance to the championship game.

“The girls did a great job of carrying out our game plan overall and played very hard,” Wiktorowski said. “We tried to make them shoot from out and limit their looks in the post. We did that well except for about a three-minute stretch in the second half. Again, our own offensive struggles were too much for us to overcome.”

Senior Erin McDugle was the only Leaf to reach double-figure scoring in the loss, charting a game-high 19 points on seven of 18 shooting. Senior Kortney Hanson scored just four points but grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds, dishing out four assists to just two turnovers. Senior Candice Williams was Goshen’s next-highest scorer, tallying eight points on a three for eight effort from the floor.

After Purdue University Calumet defeated Indiana Tech by a 58-47 score in Friday’s other semi-final match, the Leafs would have to face the Lady Warriors up-tempo style in Saturday’s consolation game. At first, Goshen seemed to have no troubles: The Leafs shot out of the gate with an 11-3 burst just five minutes in, and led by a 20-10 score at the half’s 7:59 mark. From that point, however, Tech took control. A 35 to nine Lady Warrior run turned a 10-point Goshen lead into a 16-point deficit, as even the 15-minute halftime break did little to stop Indiana Tech’s momentum. The Lady Warriors led by a 25-28 score at halftime, but increased its lead to 29-45 just seven minutes into the second period.

When it appeared as if Goshen would crumble, the Leafs put together arguably its best stretch of basketball over the weekend. Slowly Wiktorowski’s team chipped away at the Tech lead, putting together an eight to nothing run of its own to pull to a 45-47 deficit with 7:15 to play in the game. Unfortunately, that was as close as the Leafs would get, as Indiana Tech had an answer to each Goshen push for the remainder of the contest. Wiktorowski’s team closed to three points on two occasions in the game’s final five minutes, but could get no closer. Tech grabbed six of its 22 offensive rebounds during that stretch, and hit two of its nine three-pointers to close the game in strong fashion.

“We got down by 16 points in the second half, but made a really nice run to almost pull even,” Wiktorowski said. “We couldn’t sustain it at the end as they got a couple key offensive rebounds and hit a couple threes.”

Goshen shot much better than in its past three games, knocking in 18 of 38 shots (47.4 percent) from the floor. However, the Leafs could only connect on three of 11 tries from deep (27.3 percent) and turned the ball over 28 times.

McDugle again led the squad in scoring, charting 14 points to go with six rebounds. Williams tallied 13 points, while freshman Carly Feldman scored nine to go with six rebounds in just her fourth start of the season.

“We have some young players who are getting good experience and we hope that will really begin to show in our offensive production,” Wiktorowski said. “We did a lot of positive things and are trying very hard. Hopefully, we can hang in there until our offense becomes a consistent part of our overall game.”

Aquinas took the Goshen College Classic title trophy, defeating Purdue Calumet by a 62-38 score in the championship game.

Goshen will now take a short break to enjoy the Christmas holiday before returning to action just four days following, as the Leafs will travel to Bluffton University on Dec. 29 for a non-league contest. Game time is set for 3 p.m.