A nail-biting win against Davenport left a better taste in the mouths of the NMU women’s basketball team after losses in both games at the Indianapolis Tournament last weekend.
The Wildcats snapped Davenport University’s 31-game home winning streak 56-50 on Tuesday night, after losses to Marian University 69-43 on Friday and the University of Indianapolis 68-55 on Saturday. The lady ’Cats are 3-3 overall.
Head coach Troy Mattson, who is in his seventh season with the ‘Cats, said the freshmen are playing solid basketball and are continuing to improve defensively each game.
“Our defense has been top notch,” Mattson said. “Even when we haven’t had our best offensive games we’ve had a chance to win based on defensive play.”
NMU led the entire first half against Davenport, but a slow start to the second half allowed the Panthers to take their first lead of the game.
The Panthers opened up a six-point lead one minute later. The ’Cats began to take over when they tied it up 39-39 on a three-pointer by freshman guard Alyssa Colla.
Colla said that the team kept composure and never backed down, even when Davenport would make a run.
“Some of our shots finally began to fall last night, which ultimately helped us win,” Colla said.
The lady ’Cats were led by Colla with 12 points and four rebounds. Senior guard Hillary Bowling had 11 points, six rebounds and one block; freshman guard Lauren Gruber also had nine points and one rebound.
Even though Colla led the team in points against the Panthers, she said she just wants to stay consistent and play well defensively.
“Scoring a certain amount of points isn’t very important to me, as long as our team gets a win at the end of the night,” Colla said. “I will contribute as much as I can, though.”
Even though NMU got the win against Davenport, Mattson said he thinks the team has a lot to work on leading up to winter break.
“I’ve said it all along and will continue to say it, we need to establish an inside game,” Mattson said. “We have freshmen rotating inside that are struggling and we need to find a way to get better shots from the low and mid post.”
NMU jumped out to an early lead against Marian, but after being outscored 12-5 in the last seven minutes of the first half, Marian only trailed 25-20 going into the second. Ultimately, the Knights improved their record to 5-1 overall with the victory.
Mattson said the ’Cats battled hard against Marian and he was happy with almost every category.
“We played our best ball against Marian, but free throws lost us the game,” Mattson said.
Senior guard Hillary Bowling paced the ’Cats with 12 points and three rebounds in the loss to Marian on Friday. Senior guard Chelsea Lyons led the team against Indianapolis on Saturday with 16 points and three rebounds.
On Saturday, the ’Cats trailed 30-20 early, but began to claw their way back in the second half by cutting the Greyhounds’ lead to six points. Even though they out-rebounded Indianapolis 18-11 in the second half and 33-31 overall, Indianapolis prevailed.
“We have to be even better on the boards,” Colla said. “Limiting turnovers will be important moving forward and I think we learned a lot this weekend, plus we are improving.”
