Concordia women’s basketball loses winning streak with match against Mount Marty

Photo description: Junior Sadie Powell reaches to catch the ball from a teammate. 

Photo credit: Courtney Wright

Cohen Carpenter

Sower Staff

Jamestown came to Seward Saturday afternoon and upset the No. 7 ranked Bulldogs by a score of 71-61, the first blemish on Concordia’s hitherto perfect season.

The Jimmies, who boasted an unassuming record of 4-3 coming into the weekend contest, were able to hold the Concordia offense to less than 75 points for the first time this season. At one point, late in the third quarter, Jamestown even held a 15-point lead over the home team — Concordia’s largest deficit of the season.

Despite this, the Bulldogs were able to come back. Following a layup by junior Kendall Brigham, Concordia was only down by three with 1:46 remaining in the contest.

“I thought we started to fight at that point,” said head coach Drew Olsen about his team’s late-game heroics. “We started to compete really hard; we got defensive stops and got stuff in transition.”

Concordia’s late-game attempts at a come-back were not at all aided by their first-half performance. When the Bulldogs headed to the locker room for halftime, they shot 28.1 percent from the field and 22.2 percent from downtown, resulting in a dismal 22 points between the first two quarters. Coach Olsen expanded on much-needed halftime adjustments.

“We tried to open the floor a little bit more just to allow us to have more driving lanes,” he said. “But we came out and showed more fight and toughness that really made the difference in the third quarter.”

That fight was apparent, as the Bulldogs scored more in the third quarter than in the entire first half combined. This was accomplished through a more accurate offensive approach as the Bulldogs would shoot 42.8 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from beyond the arch.

Three Bulldogs were tied for the scoring lead when it was all said and done. Junior Taysha Rushton, who has led the Bulldogs in scoring, had 11 on her worst shooting night of the season, only making 2-12 from the field and 1-5 three-pointers. However, Rushton was perfect from the charity stripe, going 6-6 while boasting five assists.

Junior Abby Krieser would again lead the Bulldogs in rebounds with seven and would contribute 11 points of her own on a 4-9 shooting night.

Rounding out the 11-point trio was sophomore Kristin Vieselmeyer, who had the best shooting night of the bunch. Going 4-10 from the field and 3-8 from downtown, Vieselmeyer would also contribute four rebounds.

While the game may have been close until the final minutes, Jamestown ultimately never let their foot off the gas, and after a few costly mistakes by the Concordia offense, inflated their lead to 10 when the final whistle blew.

“It was at that point, after we got back into our rhythm, that we just ran out of gas,” said Olsen. “We just had to spend so much energy to get back in the game and get competitive.”

With their first loss of the season, now with a 6-1 record, the Bulldogs look ahead to a contest with Mount Marty to get their mojo back.

“We’ll be fine,” said Olsen. “We’ll execute better, and we have to get better as a unit. We’ll go to work on Monday and have better practices and go from there.”

Tip-off will be at 6 p.m. on Wednesday in Yankton, South Dakota.