After two victories in their first two games, the women’s basketball team struggled this week against some tough competition. On Tuesday night, the Red Hawks played Williams College in their home opener, but dropped the contest 59-51. Saturday night, again at home, the girls fell to Bowdoin, the second-ranked team in the nation.
Going into halftime trailing by two, a few things were evident. The Red Hawks could see that they had struggled in certain aspects of play, especially in terms of meeting their individual game goals. Regardless, they competed well enough to still be in position to win the game.
In the early stages of the game, the girls had settled for jumpers on a regular basis. Even when attacking the basket, they would pull up rather then drive to the hoop. Head Coach John Greene felt that the team was very undisciplined in their half court offense.
Knowing what needed to be done in the second half, the team came out with much improved play, addressing the areas in which they had earlier struggled. RPI attacked the basket, ran the offense more proficiently, and even swung the momentum at one point mainly due to their increased pressure on defense.
In the end, RPI began to beat themselves. The team had twenty seven turnovers, most of them being unforced. Only one starter went to the free throw line, and the entire team only had fourteen attempts. Williams College scored ten of the final 12 points of the game in the final five minutes.
With the score tied 49-49, Williams got a basket from junior guard Meghan Stetson with 5:00 remaining to take the lead for good.
Williams guard Colleen Hession finished with a game-high 20 points, including five three-pointers. She also had three rebounds, two assists, a block, and three steals in 36 minutes.
Rensselaer had three players reach double figures in points, led by Kristi Baranowski, who had 13 points with eight rebounds, an assist, two blocks, and two steals in 27 minutes. Freshmen guards Caitlyn Charest and Whitney Coleman had 11 points apiece for the Red Hawks. Sophomore Brittney O’Neal also made a nice contribution on the defensive end, grabbing rebounds.
Hanging with Bowdoin was a difficult task for the Red Hawks. Polar Bear guard Julia Loonin got off to a great start with 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting with three three-pointers, helping her team take a fourteen point lead into the half.
The margin would grow to as much as twenty-two points in the second half. With a late surge, however, RPI closed the gap to ten points, but that is as close as they would get.
Loonin finished with 19 points to lead Bowdoin. For RPI, Charest had a team-high 12 points with four rebounds while junior guard Destany Eagles scored 10 points with one rebound, two assists and two steals.
Tuesday evening the Red Hawks got back to winning, defeating local rival Russell Sage 69-44. Barnowski posted a double-double, scoring 14 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
Despite the two losses dropping their record to 3-2, the Red Hawks will be able to take a lot out of the past week. “We made some mistakes, but these are all things we can fix, and we will work on them in practice,” said Greene. He added, “We are athletic, we want to run, and that comes from defense.”
Areas the team will look to work on include overall defense, attacking the basket, taking care of the ball, catching and squaring up in a triple threat position, and being disciplined—all things that are fixable.
The Red Hawks return to action this weekend when they take part in the Scranton Diversified Tournament in Scranton, Penn.
