RALEIGH, N.C.- Playing just their second game of the season and their first since November 14, the #13 Shaw Lady Bears had their winning streak snapped at 16 games following their 78-58 loss to Tusculum on Tuesday night at C.C. Spaulding Gymnasium.
Playing in just their second game of the season, the Lady Bears drop to 1-1 with the loss. The loss marks the team's first setback since suffering a 68-66 defeat at the hands of Johnson C. Smith back in February. Coming into the night, the Lady Bears had won 16 straight games dating back to the end of the last season when they won the program's first-ever NCAA Division II National Championship.
The game marked the first appearance of the season for several Lady Bears, including starters Sequoyah Griffin, Crystal Harris and Taylor Dalrymple. Shaw assistant coach Ashante Timoll says that the players are still getting familiar with playing together and is confident that the Lady Bears will turn it around by season's end.
"We're still evolving," said Timoll. "Everybody is still trying to figure out how they fit in the scheme. At the end of the day, people are going to come hard at us because of where we are. The biggest thing is that the people that we are looking at to put the ball in the basket, it's their first time out and you're going have bouts where they look good and bouts where they don't look so good."
The Lady Bears suffered from shooting woes, hitting just 29.2 percent from the field. Tusculum ended the game hitting 40.8 percent including shooting 37.5 percent from 3-point land.
Despite the low shooting percentage, the Lady Bears still managed to have three players score in double figures, including two of their newcomers. Junior point guard Kearah Jeffreys scored a team-high 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the floor to go along with five rebounds. Dalrymple, a 6-1 senior forward, scored 13 points off the bench while snagging down five boards. Griffin, 5-9 senior guard, contributed with 12 points in 39 minutes of action for the Lady Bears.
"As a team, it was just a lack of chemistry," said Dalrymple after the game. "We just have to keep practicing together and playing together. Tonight was the first game for a lot of us. We just have to get used to playing with each other."
The win for Tusculum improves the Pioneers to 6-2 overall and it marks the second straight year that they have knocked off the defending NCAA Division II National Champion. Last season, the Pioneers defeated 2010-11 National Champion Clayton State 63-51 in the second game of the season.
"You have to give them a lot of credit," said Timoll. "They came in here and did what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to come in here and play hard. We're going to play tough competition throughout the whole year. For us, we just have to keep going, learn from our mistakes and continue to get better. That's what we do."
The Pioneers, who led the entire way, got off to a quick start when Jama Hammontree scored the first five points on a layup and a 3-pointer in the opening 32 seconds of the game. The score remained 5-0 for nearly three minutes before Shaw's Diamond Mitchell scored the Lady Bears' first points of the game on a jumper with 17:20 remaining in the first half.
After trailing 10-9 at the 13-minute mark, the Pioneers went on an 11-0 run and built a comfortable 21-9 lead. The two teams kept trading baskets after that, making it difficult for the Lady Bears to cut into the lead. With 6:38 remaining in the first half, Dalrymple hit a jumper from the top of the key to get the Lady Bears within seven at 23-16.The seven-point deficit would be as close as Shaw would get for the rest of the way as the Pioneers held a 35-25 lead at halftime.
At the 7:46 mark, the Pioneers built a 28-point lead, their largest of the game, at 68-40. The Lady Bears responded by going on a 12-0 run and getting back within 16. During that stretch, Dalrymple had a successful three-point play that cut the lead to 25 (68-43), Jeffreys drained a 3-pointer to make it 68-46, Whitney King hit a pair of free throws (68-48), Jeffreys had another long jumper to get the Bears within 18. With 4:34 left, Adana David sank a pair of free throws to get Shaw within 16 at 68-52.
Unfortunately, that 16-point deficit would be as close as Shaw would get for the rest of the way. The Pioneers ended their scoring drought on a pair of April McCann free throws with 4:23 left.
Tusculum's Kendal Baxter led all scorers with 28 points on 10-of-18 shooting. She hit several shots from deep three-point territory and shot 6-of-13 (46 percent) from downtown. Hammontree finished the game with 15 points and six boards. Breaira Barksdale had 10 points and seven assists while Ashley Thurman added nine points and nine rebounds for the Pioneers.
"We're going to continue to work, we're going to continue to get better and at the end of the year, we're going to be where we're supposed to be, where Shaw is supposed to be," said Timoll.
The Lady Bears will look to bounce back with a strong showing in this weekend's Shaw Invitational. Shaw will host a two-day invitational tournament that will feature No. 17 Nova Southeastern, Washington Adventist and Fayetteville State. All games will be played at C.C. Spaulding Gymnasium.
The tournament begins when the Lady Bears take on Washington Adventist at 1 p.m. Friday afternoon. At 4:00 p.m., Fayetteville State will battle Nova Southeastern.
The tournament will continue on Saturday when Shaw battles Nova Southeastern at 5 p.m. Fayetteville State will take on Washington Adventist the conclude the invitational at 7 p.m.
"We just have to pull it together," said Dalrymple. "This weekend is going to be a testament to our strength. Are we going to pull it together or are we going to let the flaws that we had tonight continue to break us apart. That's what we have to figure out."
article by Ryan Sarda
