The Washburn women’s basketball team got off to a slow start in the first half against Southwest Baptist University in their first round of the MIAA tournament, this resulted in an upset with the Ichabods as the No. 6 seed and Southwest Baptist the No. 11 seed with a 73-85 loss. 

“It doesn’t feel real. It still feels like we have practice tomorrow,” said Dana Channel, junior guard and starter for the game. “We shouldn’t be going and losing in our home court in our last game.”

In the first half of the game, the Bods trailed behind the Bearcats who had a couple double-digit runs to put them well ahead of Washburn. The Ichabods did answer back with a 9-0 run, but the Bearcats kept them from getting within reach of taking the lead. The Bods were missing their starting forward Brittney Lynch, who was out of the game due to a concussion. Without Lynch in the game, the team was missing out on some inside shots. 

“You’re always disappointed when you can see 32 score five 3-pointers in one half,” said Ron McHenry, head coach. “You should be able to talk and find out where she is at. You know it hurts when you don’t have Brittney in there because Brittney can communicate and cover the inside. That helps us get to the outside shooter.”

The Bearcats made 54 percent of the field goals and 53 percent of the 3-pointers compared to the Bods’ 41 percent of field goals and only 26 percent of 3-pointers. SBU’s top scorer for the first half was Brook Ducan, who was wide open and scored five 3-pointers. Taylor Ignoto was Washburn’s leading scorer with 19 points. The first half ended with Washburn women down 17 points. 

The second half the Ichabods attempted to come back from SBU’s strong lead. However, the Bearcats had a response to almost every score from Washburn, never letting the Bods come closer than nine points. In the end the Bods only shot 36 percent from the field. 

“We shot 36 percent and it’s hard to win a game when you shoot that percentage. We were struggling inside. When you don’t make inside plays, your percentage is always going to be bad,” said McHenry

Ignoto ended the night with 21 points. Casyn Buchman scored 17 points during the game. Honor Duvall also scored 13 points from off the bench. 

Lynch earned third team all-conference as well as all-defensive team in the All-MIAA team and Buchman earned second team all-conference. The women’s basketball team finished the season overall with a 16-11 record. 

The Bearcats will continue on to play Pittsburg State University, who is on a 12-game winning streak in the quarterfinals of the MIAA tournament Thursday.

“There were times during the season when we just didn’t seem like we wanted it as much as we should have,” said Channel. “We did have a lot of good fights, but all of them just weren’t there and hopefully that will teach us for next time that we need to fight every single game and keep our heads up.”