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Team Slides To 7-4 In Idaho
The Northwest College women’s basketball team may have suffered a holiday hangover of sorts as the team dropped a pair of weekend games at the College of Southern Idaho tournament. The Trappers fell 78-67 to the hosts on Friday, then fell 79-46 to nationally-ranked Snow on Saturday.
Both games featured the Trappers falling behind early and putting themselves in a position to have to fight back from double digit deficits.
“We didn’t do a good job of coming out ready to play either night,” said Trapper head coach Janis Beal, whose team started Friday’s game against CSI by allowing the host team to score 18 of the game’s first 21 points.
“Southern Idaho is a strong team, and you can’t put yourself in that sort of position against a strong team,” said Beal. “We have to come out ready to play at the beginning.”
From that dismal beginning, however, the Trappers were able to fight back. The team trimmed the gap to under 10 points to trail 41-32 at the half. In the second half, Northwest steadily carved its way back into the game, pulling to within a point, 61-60, with seven minutes remaining. From there, Southern Idaho buckled back down to pull away over the final minutes.
“We turned the ball over 33 times and gave up 25 offensive rebounds,” said Beal. “They’re a good team. You can’t give them that many extra possessions.”
CSI made the most of those opportunities, too. The team converted the chances into an extra 28 shot opportunities in the game.
Mariah Duran had a stellar night for Northwest College. The 5-foot-5 sophomore from Murray, Utah, connected on four of her eight shots from behind the arc and finished with 25 points to lead all scorers in the contest. Duran also had seven rebounds and dished out seven assists in the game for the Trappers.
“Mariah shot the ball really well,” said Beal.
Layana de Souza added 20 points while Savannah Minder came off the bench to drop in 11 points in the loss.
“Savannah did a good job of coming off the bench for us and attacking the basket,” said Beal. “She was able to control the ball and take care of it. We needed someone to do that.”
The Trappers suffered a The Trappers suffered a similar slow start on Saturday against No. 18 Snow College, a team they had already defeated once in tournament play this year. Unlike that contest, which saw Northwest jump to an early lead, the Trappers were playing from behind the entire way on Saturday.
Snow vaulted to an early 20-point advantage and rolled from there.
“It was kind of the same thing,” said Beal. “We were very flat and we didn’t come out ready to play from the opening tip.”
In contrast to the previous night, where the Trappers were able to fight off their sluggish start and climb back into the contest, Northwest was unable to ever get its offense going. The Trappers misfired on all 14 of their shots from behind the 3-point arc. The team finished shooting less than 25 percent from the floor on just 18-for-74 shooting.
“We just didn’t have the concentration we needed to knock our shots down,” Beal said.
Minder led all scorers with 14 points. Kennedy Allen added 13 points as the only other Trapper to reach double figures in scoring. Cowley freshman Leslie Blackburn added eight points and 10 rebounds, narrowly missing what would have been her first collegiate double-double.
“Leslie did some good things off the bench for us in that game,” Beal said. “She ran the floor well and made some things happen.”
De Souza added a team-high 14 rebounds.
The Trapper women return to action this Friday and Saturday in Powell for the Big Horn Federal Shootout. The team hosts Snow College at 5:30 p.m. on Friday night before facing the East Idaho All-Star squad at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
“The good thing is we basically get beat by Snow, drive home and then turn around and have a chance to avenge that on our home floor on Friday,” said Beal. “Hopefully we’ll understand we can’t have that sort of game on our home floor.”
Southern Idaho 78 Northwest 67
Layana de Souza 20, Taylor Ryan 4, Mariah Duran 25, Kennedy Allen 5, Saige Hartman 2, Savannah Minder 11.
Snow 79 Northwest 46
Layana de Souza 6, Taylor Ryan 2, Kennedy Allen 13, Saige Hartman 3, Savannah Minder 14, Leslie Blackburn 8.