Washburn’s defense shines in tough conference matchups

Ethan Bennett

The women’s basketball team faced formidable foes this week going up against  (7-0) Fort Hays and the (8-1) Nebraska Kearney. After coming home from a tough road loss the (6-1) Ichabods hope to rekindle their flame and winning six straight to start the season.

Fort Hays came out strong quickly outscoring The Ichabods in the first quarter 20-18.

The second quarter was a much different story for the Ichabods with the team only putting up 6 points in the second quarter.

The Tigers maintained quality defense forcing the Ichabods to take tough shots.

At the half, with the score at 24-33 the Ichabods knew they had work to do.

Returning to the court, freshman Mackenzie Loe lit up the floor gaining another 7 points for the Ichabods.

“The First half was a little rough but after the locker room talk, we had to run our stuff and take care off the ball and that helped a lot. The team’s second half performance was very good and we need to play like that all the time,” Loe said. 

The Ichabods responded  by taking advantage of Fort Hays’ suffering passing ability picking up 4 STL in the second half.

The team closed the gap in the third quarter with a last-second shot by Alexis McAfee shrinking Fort Hays’ lead.

The 4th quarter was intense with the Ichabods going shot for shot with Fort Hays and with 1:04 left in the game Regina Phelan put up two free throws to give the Ichabods the lead.

The Ichabods ran out the clock and beat the Tigers 62-49. 

“[The] first half was below average but we definitely picked it up second half. We really wanted the W so that really pushed us to play harder and be better.” McAfee said. 

 

Against Nebraska Kearney, the Ichabods start off hot putting up 15 Pts while holding Kearney to only 7 points Washburns Stellar Defense continued to hold Kearney well into the 2nd

 

But going into the 3rd Quarter with Kearny attempting to put up a comeback they score 17 to Washburn’s 15 but in the final quarter the Washburn defense came alive and better than ever hold The oppositions to only 3 Pts in the final quarter of play.

 

With tough Washburn defense and Washburn’s own Taylor Blue Putting up a stellar performance and lead the team in scoring 18 Pts to trample Nebraska Kearney 57-39