Women's basketball opens season with loss to Bluffton

DEFIANCE, Ohio – The Defiance College women's basketball team opened the 2020-21 season with an 80-67 loss to Bluffton University. The game was the first intercollegiate athletic event for Defiance College since March 13 when the baseball and softball teams competed in Florida. It was also the first event hosted by Defiance since Feb. 15, 2020, when both basketball teams hosted Rose-Hulman.

"Overall, on the scoreboard, it didn't come out our way but I thought we did a lot of good things. It was their eighth game and our first and we did a lot of first game things. With how young we are a lot of freshmen and sophomores are getting to play so I expected some of those mistakes," said Head Coach Allan King, Jr. "The thing I liked is that there is a lot of things we can clean up and we still put 67 points despite making some of those mistakes. We had kids play pretty well, we had a quarter of 17, quarter 22, and a quarter of 21. With a young team, one bad quarter can hurt you, and we had a quarter of 7 tonight and that killed us."

Briana Townley led the Yellow Jackets with 12 points in the contest followed by Nicole Sims and Taylor Day who both totaled nine.

"We've seen a lot of growth and maturity from Bri this year and a great example of that is how she began the second half. She didn't have the best first half but lit some things on fire for a few minutes and that is the growth that has happened and will continue to happen with her," said King. 

The visiting Beavers opened the game with a 12-4 run to take an early lead, however, the Yellow Jackets were able to cut that lead to just a single point thanks to an 8-0 run highlighted by three points from Sims and a four-point play from McKenzie Cooper. The Beavers closed the first quarter with a three-pointer to take a 21-17 lead.

The Beavers pulled away in the second quarter, outscoring the hosts 23-7 to take a 44-24 lead into halftime. The Yellow Jackets shot just 18.2% (2-11) in the quarter.

The Purple and Gold came out of the halftime break strong, opening the third quarter with a 14-4 run capped by 10 points from Townley. The sophomore went a perfect 4-4 with two three-pointers during the stretch. Despite this big swing, the Yellow Jackets could not maintain their momentum and the Beavers remained ahead after three quarters by the score of 60-46.

Led by seven points from freshman Marissa Esposito, the Yellow Jackets outscored the Beavers 21-20 in the final quarter but could not close the gap and were handed their first loss of the season.

Esposito was among five freshmen to make their collegiate debuts in the game. Cooper notched seven points and three steals while grabbing a team-high five rebounds and Brooklyn Gillig went 4-4 from the free-throw line. Kylie Brinkman and Cait Good each also scored their first colligate points with the latter making a three-pointer.

"Really the two things that hurt us in the game the most were end of the shot clock scores and second-chance points," King remarked. "Give Bluffton credit, they did a good job of moving the ball well and not panicking at the end and knocking down the shot. I told the girls before the game that finishing good possessions and rebounding the basketball will be key. Unfortunately, that is what cost us today, but again it is the first game of the year. I see growth and growth potential."

The Yellow Jackets will travel to Bluffton for a rematch against the Beavers tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 p.m.