Women’s basketball ends season with loss

The Ottawa University women’s basketball team lost 44-35 to Tabor College in the quarterfinals of the KCAC Tournament at Tabor Gymnasium.

With this loss, the Lady Braves finished their season 9-20 overall, seventh in the KCAC, with a 5-13 conference record.

It was a rough game for both offenses. Tabor was leading 17-16 after the first half.

“We played very well defensively, but we got stuck in the right moment,” senior Amber Ramsey said. “We turned the ball over whenever we needed points.”

Coach Bruce Tate said the team could not get the offense going when they needed it.

“All year long we struggled to score in one half and then picked it up for the second one or vice versa,” coach Bruce Tate said. “We never started making shots this game.”

Tate said he believed the key to the game was that they gave up a few offensive rebounds and sent Tabor players to the free throw line when they weren’t scoring from the field.

“Second-chance points and free-throw points really hurt us in that stretch,” he said.

Senior April Dowell said the team played hard, but just came up short.

“We played great team defense the entire game, but fouled too much throughout the game,” Dowell said. “We turned the ball over too much, and they converted that into points.”

Ramsey believes not having the home-court advantage hurt them.

“They had a big three, which gave them the momentum. The home crowd was going wild,” Ramsey said. “It made their energy go higher and it affected us.”

The loss ended of a season Tate described as a low year.

“We were picked to finish fourth and we finished seventh,” he said. “However, I enjoyed it. The girls worked very hard.”

The Lady Braves started off the season strongly.

“We held ranked teams way below their average,” Dowell said. “We should have beaten them. We started to break down in November because we were on the road for the entire month.”

Dowell said they could have won more games after Christmas.

“We should have won a lot of conference games, but we couldn't figure out how to close the games,” she said. “Besides, no one ever showed up on the same night.”

Tate believes their biggest struggle was to score the basketball.

“Overall, we had good games defensively,” Tate said. “We need more consistency scoring from the perimeter and the inside. Some nights we just turned the ball over too much. We didn’t play the way we expected to.”