Maybe it was a case of first game jitters. The house was packed, the basketball pace was fast and the games were exciting, but unfortunately the Lady Colonels failed to come up with a win as they lost to the Xavier Golden Nuggets in an exhibition basketball match Thursday night 72-52.
In the first half, the Lady Colonels kept the score close trailing 32-27 going into halftime; however, problems handling the press and poor shooting by the Lady Colonels enabled the Golden Nuggets to score 40 second half points to pull away.
A bright spot for the Colonels came from red-shirt freshman Clemisha Mingo, who finished her night with 21 points to lead the Colonels in scoring. No other Lady Colonel player was able to score in double digits.
When asked to talk more about her red-shirt freshman’s performance, Louise “Do” Bonin, head women’s basketball coach said, “The best thing I can say about her is that we thought that we had a really good player in her last year, but we made the commitment to red-shirt her early. “She played against some of the best players we had last year in practice, so I knew it would be a matter of time before we put her in a game situation and she could shine.”
Other scorers for the Colonels included red-shirt freshman Dasha Maze, who scored seven, junior Cristin Burdette, who scored five, and freshman Tiffany Leake who chipped in with four.
The Golden Nuggets had four players in double figures. Leading the way was senior Jackie Tucker, who had 14 points. Junior guard Courtney Williams and senior forward Ferris Peters chipped in with 12 points, while senior guard/forward Jackie Tucker had 10 points.
When asked about high points in the game, Bonin said she was proud of her red-shirt freshman and that the game was in reach but her team didn’t capitalize.
“I saw a lot more good than I saw bad tonight,” coach Bonin said. “We had a red-shirt freshman score 21 points and grab 12 rebounds. I thought we had some good individual performances; I thought Jessica Gipson played her tail off. We had some good individual performances, but it didn’t quite play out like we needed it to,”
Although the Colonels fell 10 baskets short of their goal of a win, Bonin is optimistic because after all it is an exhibition.
“We went harder to the offensive boards tonight than we did all of last year,” Bonin said. “I just liked what I saw tonight; I know we fell 10 baskets short, but I liked what I saw from the kids.”
Coach Bonin later said one area her team really struggled in was handling the press. “We have to work on handling the press. That’s our best area. We haven’t worked very much on the press; we worked more on our half-court offense, but we have to go to work on that,” Bonin said.
The Lady Colonels will try to win their first road game of the season as they travel to Waco, Texas to battle the Baylor Bears Saturday, Nov. 22 at 6 p.m.