Women’s Basketball Wins Conference Opener
In the first conference game of the season, the Waynesburg University’s women’s basketball team traveled to Bethany College to take on the Bison. Despite a slow start to the game, the Yellow Jackets outlasted the Bison for a final of 72-62.
In the opening minutes of the game, the Bison would jump out to a 5-0 lead. The Yellow Jackets would struggle to find baskets until nearly four minutes into the first quarter when senior forward Haley Delaney put the Jackets on the board with a jump shot.
Later on in the quarter, after being down by as many as six points, they would battle back – going on a 6-2 run to close the quarter.
Despite the slow start, head coach Sam Jones said the early deficit was never something that was too concerning.
“We were attacking,” said Jones. “We just weren’t getting the shots; we were getting the look we wanted, but first conference game [of the season] we were a little jittery, but I wasn’t too concerned.”
A contributing factor to the early struggles in the game was the lack of production from junior forward Addy Knetzer, who leads the team in game average points this season. Through the first half of the game, Knetzer only managed to tally up four points – well short of her average of 20 points per game.
“My shots just weren’t falling in the first half,” said Knetzer. “I just kept going at it in the second half and they eventually started to fall. I just did what I know what I needed to do and it worked itself out in the second half.”
The Yellow Jackets would finally take the lead for the first time in the game with a minute and a half left in the first half of the game. They would go to the half with a 29-27 edge.
Jones said he made adjustments for the second half.
“We wanted to work the ball around, make [Bethany] move defensively and make them get good open looks,” said Jones. “We obviously wanted to start from the inside out; that’s a good strategy anytime.”
The adjustments worked, and the Jackets would develop an 11-point lead midway through the third quarter from a layup from sophomore point guard Monica Starre. By the end of the third quarter, the Yellow Jackets still led the Bison 53-46.
Knetzer, who began to find the basket in the second half of the game, said the team played through their early game difficulties.
“We kept playing hard; we were playing through – we felt like we were in a rut,” said Knetzer. “We kept playing through and our shots started to fall and that’s what started to change for us.”
The Yellow Jacket capped their evening with a dominating performance in the fourth quarter, taking the lead by as many as 13 points at one point. Additionally, Knetzer found her groove and put in 14 points in the second half of the game alone, totaling 20 points on the evening.
With the victory, the Yellow Jackets improved to a ten game winning streak over Bethany. Despite the impressive history against the Bison, Jones said the road game and conference victory was difficult.
“Conference road games are always tough, throw out history, through out anything, they are always tough,” said Jones. “I thought we did a nice job being resilient despite things not being well early and I was pretty happy with how we performed overall.”
With the victory, the Yellow Jackets start conference play with a 1-0 record with an overall record sitting at 3-2. Up next for the women’s basketball team is Grove City College. The Jackets will travel to Grove City on Saturday, Dec. 3, for 1 p.m. tipoff.