Box Score Seeking their first winning streak in Great Lakes Valley Conference play the William Jewell women's basketball team jumped out to an early lead over McKendree but saw that lead slowly slip away and fell 57-47 in overtime to the Bearcats. The Cardinals fall to 6-10 overall, 1-4 in the GLVC.
Jewell came out on fire hitting their first six shots and eight of their first ten to build a 20-8 lead during the opening quarter. McKendree began their long battle back at the 2:57 mark of the first frame as they closed the quarter on a 6-0 run and continued with 5-0 run to open the second. The Bearcats got as close as five in the first half before
Maddie Nelson hit jump shot at the buzzer that gave Jewell a seven point advantage at the break.
The Bearcats pulled within one at 29-28 less than four mintues into the second half. It appeared that the Cardinals would again pull away late in the quarter as free throws from
Logan Antenen along buckets from
Blair Klostermann and
Adriana Rodriguez put Jewell back up by six (40-34) to close the quarter.
In the fourth, both teams went cold for long periods of time as it took nearly three minutes for either team to score. McKendree's Ellie Pusheck scored six unanswered points before another run of three minutes without a point was ended again by a McKendree player. Kelsee Ennis' three-point shot at the 2:31 mark gave the Bearcats their first lead of the night. A jump shot and a free throw, combined with a missed free throw from McKendree put the teams into a tie at 43 with 20 seconds to play.
McKendree's Amber Alexander drove and took an open jump shot with 14 seconds remaining. The shot missed everything but landed directly in the hands of a teammate under the basket in a moment that seemed to seal the Cardinals' fate, however the Bearcat player dropped the ball out of bounds and gave Jewell another chance. Following a timeout, the Cardinals had 12 seconds to try to get the game-winner through the net but a turnover with just two seconds to play forced the contest to overtime.
In the overtime period Alexander took over scoring all seven of her points in the extra five minutes, including a three-point shot with just over three minutes to play that the Cardinals never seemed to recover from. The Bearcats outscored Jewell 14-4 in the final frame to gain the ten point margin. The Cardinals went 1-7 from the floor in overtime with three turnovers.
Despite fouling out early in the overtime period freshman
Madison Campbell led the Cardinal with 11 points, followed by Nelson with eight. Sophomore
Lindsey McCoy led Jewell on the boards with seven.
Up next the Cardinals travel to Illinois Springfield to take on the Prairie Stars on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. in another GLVC matchup.
