Septembre Russell – Copy editor. The Wildcats rallied against Lewis-Clark State College on Dec. 4 and Northwest Christian University on Dec. 5 only to suffer back-to-back losses, 91-56 and 52-51, respectively.
At home against Lewis-Clark State, the team opened the game well.
“We played a pretty great first half, but in the second half we came out, and they ran away with it,” freshman guard Gretchen Owens said. “We didn’t execute [in the second half] like we did in the first half. That killed us.”
The Warriors shot well that night and out rebounded the Wildcats, Owens said. Despite the opponents’ shooting persistence, she said senior guard Nadra Evans played a solid game for the ’Cats.
“[The Warriors] are so efficient offensively that it’s almost impossible to make a run on them,” head coach Casey Kushiyama said. “We battled with them in the first half, and the score was really close, but they finished with a 10-0 run to end the half that pretty much put the game away.”
Against NCU, the ’Cats created a 12-point lead early in the first half. To prevent the Beacons from establishing a rhythm, Kushiyama said the defenses were switched around a lot.
Despite Linfield’s higher shooting percentage during the first half, 50 percent to NCU’s 32 percent, the Beacons reappeared in the second half with renewed intensity.
Aggressive after the break, NCU took the court and led the game. The ’Cats failed to capitalize on the mistakes made by the Beacons, Kushiyama said.
“It was a very physical game,” Owens said. “We had a pretty good lead, and then we let them back into it.”
In addition to letting the lead slip away, missed free throws facilitated the loss to NCU, Owens said.
“It came down to our free throws in the end,” she said. “That’s one thing we’ve been trying to work on, our team percentage is low, and we’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on free throws during practice.”
Kushiyama agreed.
“We shot 11-24 from the line,” he said. “In a one-point game, you can’t miss 13 free throws. It’s like letting 13 opportunities slip through your hands. Even with all the missed free throws, we still had other opportunities.”
This weekend, the team will play two games at home against Evergreen State College on Dec. 11 and Warner Pacific College the following day.