Coyote Athletics : Women's Basketball : Headlines

Coyotes battle, but fall 58-51 to Southwestern

By Cheeto Barrera, Sports Editor, The Daily Independent

“We had our opportunities ... we just didn’t hit our shots."

Taking a break from conference play, the Cerro Coso women’s basketball team fell 58-51 to Southwestern from Arizona on Wednesday.

Despite one of their most solid rebound days this season, the Coyotes’ shots failed to fall and held the lead just three times. After opening the game with a 3-pointer from Mariah Bomberry, Cerro Coso quickly fell behind 10-5 before catching back up in midway though the period and taking the lead twice (15-12 and 19-17) but Southwestern went on a 10-2 scoring run and never looked back.

Head coach Tom Heck called the Eagles a “scrappy” team that wasn’t nearly as dominated as some of the teams in the Foothill Conference, but were able to execute well enough to pull it out in the close game.

“They’re not as athletic as some of the teams in our league, but they’re probably more disciplined and they execute fairly well. (And) they’re good shooters,” Heck said.

Heck complemented his team for making an adjustment from the last time the two teams squared off, noting Amy Wall had about eight 3-pointers back on Jan. 15 but was held to one on Wednesday.
Instead, the Eagles used a balanced attack, with four players in double digit scoring and were led overall by Ashley Frank with 16 points, including two threes. She tied Teri Stevens (who finished with 10 points) in that category.

“I said them, guys, 20 (Frank) is going to be the missing link here because last time she hurt us,” Heck said. “And this time, in the first half she wasn’t killing it (just four points). The second half she caught on hit a couple of threes and I knew she would.”

Cerro Coso countered with an 18-point effort from Bomberry and a 16-point game from Sheerena Gene.
The Coyotes threatened in the second half, tying the game at 40 all thanks to a free throw from Brenda Cantrell. But a Southwestern free throw on the next possession put the Eagles up for good.

Heck said his team had some good looks, had wished some of those looks would have fallen.

“It was just kind of a lock up both ways — no one could really pull away,” Heck said. “We had our opportunities ... we just didn’t hit our shots. We had some wide open looks and they just didn’t go in.”

On the boards, Bomberry pulled down 17 with Cantrell pulling down 14 (including 10 in the second half). The Coyotes won the battle of rebounding, getting 51 to the Eagles’ 41.

But what ultimately hurt were the turnovers.

After drawing even with Southwestern in the first half, the Coyotes turned the ball over nine times to finish the game with 16 turnovers. The Eagles committed eight, six in the first half.
The turnovers allowed Southwestern to go on a 9-0 scoring run after the Coyotes had tied the game.

“But bottom line, the reason for our failure was our turnovers,” Heck said. “I told the kids man you work so very hard to scrimp and scratch to get what we get and we just come down and just, you know, give it way and hurt ourselves. And it seemed like half the time we gave the ball away, they scored. ... And that’s the difference.”

But rebounding nearly saved the game for Cerro Coso who pulled to within four with 1:12 left to play.
Heck called time out to plan the last minute strategy, but his players were unable to sink another shot the rest of the game.

Heck said he had hoped Bomberry would have been used more in the second half, and believed that could have been the difference in the game if she had.

The Coyotes will try to make some adjustments for their Saturday game against Victor Valley College, with tip-off scheduled for 6 p.m.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

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