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The University of Jamestown women’s basketball team hung with the No. 10 Morningside Mustangs the entire way but struggled down the stretch to lose 78-73 on Jan. 1. The Jimmies (11-5, 4-4) missed eight of nine shots in the final five minutes of the game. The Mustangs (11-3, 7-1) got the job done at the free throw line, hitting five of their eight attempts in the last minute of the game. The two teams started off the game on fire, hitting a combined eight in a row before the first miss of the game.
Hannah DeMars said that she and her teammates can take confidence from pushing a top ten team in this game.
“Absolutely, I think any team would take confidence out of that,” DeMars said. “We played a good game, we did our stuff. We did what we wanted to do but it just didn’t end up going our way.”
[\The Jimmies’ Audrey Rodakowski put an end to the run with a floater with 9 minutes to go in the first half to make it a 23-19 game in favor of the Mustangs. DeMars hit a pull up jumper to put the Jimmies up 37-31 with 1:11 to go in the first half. The Mustangs put an end to the run in the dying seconds of the first half on a floater by Alexis Spier to make it 37-33.
Rodakowski hit a layup with 6:20 to go in the third to make it 48-39 in favor of the Jimmies. The Mustangs’ brought it back to a three-point game with four minutes to go in the third on a bucket from Mitchell.
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The Jimmies Sarah Lenz spotted up from deep and hit a three to make it 65-59 with 5:30 to go in the game. DeMars hit a three to stretch the Jimmies lead to 68-61 with 5:05 to go. The Mustangs’ Sierra Mitchell hit a three to tie the game up at 68 with three minutes to go. The Jimmies bench exploded when DeMars drove into the paint and got fouled where she trimmed the deficit to 73-71 at the line with 25.7 seconds to go.
In the second half, the Mustangs slowed the pace of the game down which head coach Thad Sankey said hurt his team.
“We didn’t respond to the tempo change in the second half very well,” Sankey said. “When we went up 7,8,9 in the third quarter and had our biggest lead, they slowed the game down and really screeched it to a halt. I didn’t think we handled that very well, it affected our ability to get into our offense and that was something that made the difference in the game. We made poor passing decisions, we tried to force it. When the game slowed down we tried the wrong spots to try to speed it up real quick. Sometimes that impatience hurts you and it hurt us tonight.”
The Jimmies are back in action at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 7, when they go to Northwestern. The Mustangs return to the court at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 5, when they go to the College of Saint Mary.
MU 78, UJ 73
MU: 23 10 20 25–78
UJ: 17 20 17 19–73
Points leaders:
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MU: Chloe Lofstrom 25, Sierra Mitchell 20, Sophia Peppers 17
UJ: Hannah DeMars 21, Audrey Rodakowski 14, Noelle Josephson 12
Assists leaders:
MU: Lofstrom 3, Peppers 3, Mitchell 2, McKenna Sims 2
UJ: DeMars 4, Kia Tower 4, Jailyn Martinson 3
Rebounding leaders:
MU: Lofstrom 11, Peppers 4, Spier 4
UJ: DeMars 12, Josephson 8, Rodakowski 6
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