SCC women split two

SCC Sports Information

St. Catharine College split a pair of Mid-South Conference games last week as they won at West Virginia Tech on Thursday, but lost at home to Pikeville on Saturday. The 1-1 week leaves Lena Bramblett’s women with a 12-15 overall mark and a 2-7 conference slate.

There are three remaining games, all conference tilts, and all of those will be on the road. Saturday the Patriots play at Campbellsville. On Feb. 26 they are at Georgetown and will finish the regular season at Lindsey Wilson on Feb. 28.

At West Virginia Tech the Patriots shot well against the Golden Bears who are now 0-7 in conference play and 3-20 overall. St. Catharine took a whopping 50-14 lead at halftime and were never threatened in posting an 83-32 victory.

Four players scored in double figures led by Jana Hughes’ 24 points. Erin Rogers added 20 and Whitney Jordan and Danielle Brown had 14 each. Jennica Garitty failed to score, but was huge on the boards with 13 rebounds as the Patriots outrebounded the Golden Bears 51-32. The Patriots also had a season-high 18 assists as Iona Caulder dished out eight for the game.

Saturday’s game started as it could be the second consecutive win for St. Catharine as they jumped to a 15-0 lead over the visiting Bears in the first four minutes of the game. But the Patriots’ torrid shooting cooled off and Pikeville (18-9, 4-5) battled back to tie the game 34-34 at halftime.

The visitors took their first lead of the game at 46-45 with 12:39 to play in the game when Natiera Hinton made one of two free throws. St. Catharine could mange just two points over the next four minutes as they fell behind 50-45. Erin Rogers’ trey with 8:01 left cut the Pikeville lead to 52-50, but the Patriots could never get any closer.

Four St. Catharine players reached double figures led by Courtney Milam’s 17 points. Rogers had 15 while Jordan and Brown had 14 and 13 respectively. Brown led the rebounding effort with nine caroms, but Pikeville won the rebounding battle 52-44.

Both teams shot 37 percent from the field for the game. Pikeville made 17 of 21 free throws while St. Catharine was 8-14 from the line.

“We obviously played really well on Thursday,” said Bramblett of her team’s second conference win against West Virginia Tech. “Saturday we took a couple minutes off here and there and they took advantage of it. We rested some players when we had the lead to keep them from playing 40 minutes, but we didn’t get much contribution from our bench.”

Bramblett said the Patriots will need all the contributions the team can muster over the final three games. “Both Campbellsville and Lindsey Wilson are ranked nationally and Georgetown has received votes in the poll. It will be a very tough stretch of three games to end the season.”