After coming off an impressive 62-point win at St. Joseph, the Cards planned to continue their success at Bridgewater State College on Saturday. Scheduled for a 3pm tip-off, the Cards started the morning early, with a 9:30 am shoot-around, and by 11am they were on the road to Massachusetts. Unfortunately for the team, about an hour away from Bridgewater, the Cardinals’ bus had a battery malfunction, and they were forced to pull over on I-95 and wait for two hours with no heat until help arrived.
Finally the team arrived at Bridgewater, and the game finally began around 4:30pm. Bridgewater came out strong and jumped out to a 13-3 lead. The Cards tried to rally, but Bridgewater would not budge. Bridgewater’s ability to run the fast break, and Wes’ inability to get back on defense and get a stop, made it impossible to close the gap.
“They got out to a quick start by converting our turnovers and missed shots into easy lay-ups,” said Ali Newman ’12. “We kept chipping away at their lead, but we never seemed to get it under ten in the first half.”
The Cards went into intermission down 45-33. Hopeful that they could erase the deficit in the second half by cutting down on their turnovers and getting back on defense, the Cards slowly cut the lead down to nine by the 10:40 mark of the second quarter with a lay-up by Sam LaCroce ’12. At this point the Cardinals and the Bears continued to trade points, getting no closer until Newman was able to convert a lay-up off of her own miss, and then hit a 3-pointer on a steal by McKinley Tennant’ 11. Unfortunately this surge came too late in the game and the score finished in Bridgewater’s favor, 73-68.
The Cards finished with 29 turnovers, which lead to Bridgewater’s 20 steals.
“On over half of our turnovers, Bridgewater was able to seize the moment and run on us, which allowed them to score a large number of points,” noted Eileen Gaffney ’12, who finished with a double-double: 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Three Bridgewater players ended in double figures, including the Bears’ leading scorer. Wesleyan shot only 55 percent from the line (11-20) and was only able to rack up 13 assists on 27 baskets. One bright spot for the Cardinals was the performance of LaCroce, who finished with another double-double (18 points and 15 rebounds, seven on the offensive end).
While the Cards can’t change the fact that they were handed their second loss of the year, they can learn from this experience early on.
“We now realize the importance of the first few minutes of the game,” said Newman. “It’s harder to dig yourself out of a whole rather than continuing to build on a lead.”
The Cards made it back into the win column on Monday night with a 60-43 home win over Coast Guard. Wesleyan used a 9-0 run to erase an early 4-0 deficit and, after a five-minute span in which the teams combined for one basket (by Coast Guard), Wesleyan ended the half on a 12-4 run for a 26-14 halftime lead. The Cardinals opened the second with another 9-0 run, and after Coast Guard answered with a 9-0 run of its own, the Cardinals pulled away, never letting the Bears get closer than 14 after that. Wesleyan led by as many as 22 (60-38 with roughly 1:30 remaining) and held on for the 17-point win. LaCroce led the team with 17 points, and Ferdinand added nine points and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.
The team returns to action with a Thursday night game against Worcester State College at 7:30.
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