The women’s basketball team lost their conference match-up against Illinois Wesleyan 73-70, bringing their record to 7-10 in the normal season and 2-4 in conference games.
The Wesleyan defense was tough for the Vikings to break through the first half, trailing 29-37 after two periods of play.
Head coach Mark Beinborn tried to coach the team to find a way past the full court press.
“You have to attack it (the defense),” Beinborn said. “When you’re passive against that, which we were with our 16 turnovers in the first half, that’s what they want. We gotta take care of the ball, we gotta be aggressive, and we gotta comeback to meet the ball.”
Beinborn remarked that the Illinois Wesleyan is notorious for their good defense, which he said “helped them to win their national title last year.”
While the Vikings struggled against the press, senior and captain Marissa Pezzopane said the team got some praise for the way they handled the Titan defense.
“After the game, Olivia Lett, one of their assistant coaches, said that we did that best that they have seen against their press,” Pezzopane said.
Pezzopane led the team with 18 points, trying to bring the Vikings back into the game.
The Vikings made a strong push in the third period, going on a 10-0 run in about a minute and 30 seconds. They came within one point, outscoring the Titans 21-14 and ending the third 51-50 Titans.
Pezzopane attributed the comeback during the third to the team coming together.
“Things started going our way because we started making them happen,” Pezzopane said. “We fed off one another and that starts our fire.”
The fourth period was heavily contested, the teams battling back and forth until some poor passes resulted in the Titans slipping away off of some easy chances.
Although the Vikings scored points, they didn’t score any three pointers during the game, primarily scoring off of free throws and field goals. They only shot three three-point shots.
Pezzopane said the reason for the field goals was because of their ability to dominate in the paint.
“Going into this game, we wanted to get the ball into the post,” Pezzopane said. “We weren’t really lookin to take threes, but when the opportunities were there, yeah we didn’t hit, but we just have to work on that.”
While the Vikings had a better field goal percentage, they were outshot by the Titans who had 84 field-goal and three point shots to the Vikings 57.
Part of the lack of shots was due to the Wesleyan defense which primarily full court pressed the whole game. Due to the heavy defense, the Vikings had 26 turnovers compared to Wesleyan’s 13.
The Vikings will continue their conference run this Saturday as they take on Millikin at Millikin College.
The game will start at 5 p.m.