Lancers Drop Second Straight After Late Surge by High Point
Nick Robinson
Following a close loss to defending Big South champion Radford earlier this week, the women’s basketball team looked to stay above .500 against a High Point Panthers squad that was coming in with a record of 5-10.
The Panthers jumped out to an early lead, and, with the exception of a few ties, kept it until late in the third quarter when a layup from Anne-Hamilton Leroy finally put the Lancers on top. While the Panthers led for a majority of the game, the Lancers kept fighting and stayed in the game all the way to the end.
Head coach Rebecca Tillett spoke on her team’s resilience. “I think this team throughout the year has shown consistent fight. I think that part is there. I think we have to get a little bit better at execution on both sides of the ball, especially our defense. We have to be able to stop people.”
However, the fight the Lancers showed was not enough as the Panthers closed the game on a 13-4 run that sealed Longwood’s fate and pulled away with a 76-69 victory. Tillett said that her team played better defense in the second quarter of this game than in previous games, but wishes that they would have played as good of defense the entire game.
Tillett also added, “We were concerned with their ability to shoot the three, and we knew if we weren’t shooting the three well that they would be at an advantage. So we thought we could make up for it by getting to the free throw line more. We got there, but not as much as we would have liked.”
Three Lancers scored in double-figures: senior forward Dayna Rouse with 24 points, freshman guard Kyla McMakin with 17 points, and junior guard Tra’dayja Smith with 10 points. However, with the exception of Anne-Hamilton Leroy’s 7 points, no other Lancer scored more than 5 points.
Tillett spoke on how to get more players involved. “We’ve had quite a few games where we’ve had four or five players in double figures. Today, we had three. I think that’s something that we always think that we’re capable of doing so each woman has to do her part and do that.”
As previously mentioned, Dayna Rouse had 24 points, but she also had 11 rebounds, making it her fourth double-double of the season. When asked about how she could replicate that success, Rouse said, “Just consistently putting in work and maintaining a level of focus, especially against teams that we know we can beat.”
Rouse knew that this loss was a tough one and said that the best thing to do was to learn from every loss. She said, “We just have to watch film and see what we could have done better and how we could have defended them better so that the next game, we’re rolling.”
The Lancers will travel to Winthrop on Tuesday before returning to Willett Hall on January 25th against UNC Ashville with a 3:00 p.m. tip.
