(Box
Score) Spring Arbor, MI — Playing without its second-leading scorer and still searching for both its first road and Mid-Central Conference win of the season Saturday at Spring Arbor University, it was not made baskets or points scored that the Goshen College women’s team did not have enough of.
Instead, it was time.
Goshen (5-19, 0-10) simply did not have enough seconds on the clock in Saturday’s second half, as a furious, second-half comeback effort was halted only by the confines of time. After trailing by a 29-34 score at the half and falling behind by double figures at the start of the second period, the Leafs began a strong push in the final moments of the contest.
Unfortunately, Goshen was forced to foul due to the lessening clock, and Spring Arbor converted the necessary free throws for a 72-65 win.
“I thought we competed hard and produced some adequate offense considering we played without (freshman) Chloe VanDenBrink, our second leading scorer, because her sister got married today,” said Steve Wiktorowski, Goshen head coach. “We got some good offense from our guards both with perimeter shooting and penetration, and if a couple layups hadn't rimmed out in the second half it could have been a different outcome.”
Despite the absence of VanDenBrink and her 8.3 points per game, Goshen scored more total points than in any of its last four contests, shooting 39.6 percent from the floor (21 of 53) on the afternoon. The Cougars were able to maintain a stellar pace on their offensive end — 26 of 46 overall, 56.5 percent — but Wiktorowski’s team stayed close thanks in large part to the three-point line. Goshen drilled nine of 24 shots from deep (37.5 percent) compared to just a three for seven effort from Spring Arbor (42.9 percent).
“We played adequately the first half, but really struggled coming out of halftime,” Wiktorowski said. “But we picked it up after getting down in double digits and were really gaining momentum towards the end. If we had a little more time and wouldn't have been forced to foul, we may have been able to pull it out. But they handled the press and hit enough free throws to preserve the win.”
Spring Arbor made just 17 of 31 charity tosses on the afternoon (54.8 percent) and just 14 of 27 (51.9 percent) in the second half, but managed to knock down the necessary shots down the stretch. Goshen had several chances to cut into a five-point lead, but could not come up with a needed basket quickly enough.
Sophomore Krystal Duensing led the way for Goshen, scoring 23 points on seven of 14 shooting overall and a five of nine effort from three-point land. Senior Danielle Haney played perhaps her best game of the season offensively, knocking in 10 points on a three for six shooting performance. Freshman Kimmie Hummer scored nine points before fouling out while sister Ashley Hummer added eight points. Sophomore Troyanna Scott grabbed a team-high nine boards to go with five points, while junior Katie Sowers added five boards and three points.
“We have struggled a lot lately with offense and so it was good to produce some points despite playing without Chloe, who has improved tremendously over the course of the season,” Wiktorowski said. “I actually thought our defense, which is normally very dependable, really let us down today. We let them hurt us too much on cuts into the high post early and penetration the second half. Our help was late and they hit a lot of mid-range jumpers. Duensing really carried the load today with her shooting and ball handling. It was good to get scoring from Haney and we shot free throws better. After struggling a little lately with turnovers, I thought Kimmie Hummer had a strong game. And Troyanna Scott did a nice job on the boards with nine rebounds and filled in a lot of minutes for (sophomore) Kendra Fights who struggled with foul trouble. We are now in a stretch of four games where we play three of the top six teams in the country, so hopefully some of the positive aspects of our offense will continue to grow and we can get back to playing good pressure defense.”
Goshen will face the nation’s fourth-ranked team — the University of St. Francis — next at the Roman Gingerich Center. Game time is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday night.
|
Sophomore Krystal Duensing