Marion, IN — With a heavy snow advisory in effect for all of central Indiana, the Goshen College women’s basketball team somehow pushed through the mounds to arrive at NAIA top-ranked Indiana Wesleyan University Thursday night.

While the Leafs’ bus struggled to get through — the game was delayed a full half-hour due to Goshen’s travel hindrances — the Wildcats sat and waited.

In the end, the snow and top-rated opponent proved too much for Goshen to overcome, as the Leafs dropped their 10th straight contest, falling 36-67 to number one-ranked Indiana Wesleyan.

“Even with the difficult travel and considering we just came off final exams yesterday, there were some positives for our young team,” said Steve Wiktorowski, Goshen head coach. “We had a lot of solid defensive stands against one of the best shooting teams in the country and our defense has improved incredibly in the past few weeks. Unfortunately, we allowed them to score too much off our offense instead of making them play against our defense.”

Goshen (1-10, 0-4) committed 28 turnovers resulting in 22 Indiana Wesleyan points, keeping the Leafs from making any kind of push once the game got rolling. The Wildcats opened with a made three-pointer on its initial possession, and slowly built a 10-point lead (17-7) seven minutes into the contest. The team methodically built a 20-point advantage (34-14) with 18 seconds to play in the first half before freshman Rachel Canen buried a three to make it a 34-17 Wesleyan lead at the half.

That advantage may have been smaller had Wiktorowski’s team taken better care of the ball, as Wesleyan scored 10 of its 22 points off turnovers in the game’s first stanza.

“The story of the game was their 22 points off our turnovers versus our three off their 14,” Wiktorowski said. “We really had a lot of trouble dealing with the pressure their guards applied, and so they ended up taking 53 shots versus our 38. While they had to take some tough shots against our defense, they made up for it with too many uncontested shots being converted off our ballhandling errors.”

Indiana Wesleyan converted on 49.1 percent of those 53 tries on the night (26 made baskets) while Goshen was able to convert on just 11 of 38 attempts (28.9 percent), knocking in six of 16 threes (37.5 percent) while making eight of nine free throws (88.9 percent). The Wildcats, unfortunately, were able to get nearly twice as many shots in that department as well, but only could make 10 of 17 charity tosses (58.8 percent).

That statistic was deemed irrelevant in part due to the increased number of possessions thanks in large part to Goshen turnovers, as the Leafs could not get closer than 14 points in the second half. A nine to four mini-run from Wiktorowski’s team early in the second half cut Wesleyan’s lead from 19 to 14, but back-to-back-to-back Wildcat baskets off of Goshen errors pushed the lead back to 20 points. Wesleyan was able to keep a comfortable lead in the game’s final 12 minutes, never allowing Goshen to get closer than 18 points the remainder of the way.

Sophomore Jess Buller led Goshen’s offensive effort, knocking in 11 points on four of eight shooting from the field which included a three for six effort from three-point land. Canen added eight points on a three four seven shooting performance to go with a team-high four rebounds. Sophomores Sarah Arnold and Kelsy McKee each added five points.

“Jess Buller had another good offensive night for us, and she’s becoming more of a consistent offensive threat,” Wiktorowski said. “(Freshman) Kendra Fights (two points, three rebounds) played more aggressively and (freshman) Troyanna Scott (two points, three rebounds) was solid inside defensively despite playing against much bigger people. Rachel Canen continues to give us a nice offensive lift off the bench and has improved her all-around game a lot in the last few weeks. Our press allowed them less time to run their offense and we did a pretty good job against their slashing style of offense. With exams out of the way, hopefully we can now concentrate on improving our offensive team game before the start of the new year.”

Goshen will not have much time to wait before its next contest, as the team will again be on the road Saturday. The Leafs will face off against Purdue University Calumet Saturday afternoon. Game time is set for 2 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time).