CHARLESTON, Illinois – The Lipscomb women’s basketball team beat the Eastern Illinois Panthers 54-47 Monday afternoon at Lantz Arena in Charleston, Illinois.
With the win, the Lady Bisons broke a number of bad streaks this season, getting their first win against OVC opposition (1-3), their first win outside of Allen Arena (1-4) and their first win against a Division I opponent (1-7).
“It was so fun,” senior center Dorie Harrison said. “It was about being consistent. Things don’t always go our way, but we’re learning to respond to adversity better and keep doing the right thing no matter what,” the Nashville native said.
It was a tight game from the get-go, as the teams traded buckets in the first quarter. The Bisons scored four straight points to gain the biggest lead of the quarter at 16-11, and the quarter ended with Lipscomb holding a 16-13 advantage behind six points from Harrison.
Despite picking up two fouls in the first quarter, Harrison led the team in points and rebounds with 16 and 12, respectively. She earned a double-double for the second time this year and matched her season-high points total.
“We just stuck to the gameplan, just matching steps, making sure I stayed down,” Harrison said. “We watched film, we prepared like any game. I think we did a better job of executing the gameplan, all five of us.”
Her performance inside did not go unnoticed. “
[Harrison] did a great job of not only scoring, but getting us second and third chances with the effort that she gave,” assistant coach Chris Sumski said.
That defensive-minded, too-close-to-call narrative of the first quarter would continue throughout the rest of the game, and the Bisons looked comfortable with that mentality all afternoon long.
“That’s the kind of game that we want,” Sumski said, “because we know that most of the time, our team is going to come out fighting harder than the other team, so we like those ugly games like that.”
The second quarter, however, went decisively the way of the home team, which switched to an effective 2-3 zone press that caused Lipscomb problems on offense.
As a result, the Bisons managed just 10 points in the second frame and gave up a 7-1 run to EIU at the end of the half. The second quarter ended with a buzzer-beater three from Jordyn Hughes that gave the Panthers all the momentum going into the second half.
That was when the Bisons set themselves to work, determined to get their elusive first Division I win.
“We just knew Christmas break is a really crucial time for teams,” Harrison said. “Either they’re checked out and they lose, or they buckle down and they win. And we just decided today.”
Much like the first half, Harrison starred for the Bisons, grabbing eight second-half points while shutting down opposing center Abby Wahl, who leads EIU in points per game. Against Harrison, Wahl could manage only 11 points, below her average for the year.
“The expectation was for her to play really good defense all night long,” Sumski said. “We had to do a good job recognizing when they were switching and trying to get it in to [Wahl].”
With a strong third-quarter performance, Lipscomb leveled the score at 42 apiece going into the final frame. The two sides once again swapped with the lead early on, but the Bisons took the lead for good on a Sydney Shelton 3-ball with 7:04 left.
Shelton, a senior shooting guard from Greenfield, Indiana, finished with six points on 2-for-8 shooting from beyond the arc, adding 5 rebounds.
The team gave Shelton an honorary graduation celebration on the road Sunday night when she missed the chance to receive her diploma at commencement after graduating with a master’s degree in business administration this month.
Defensively, the Lady Bisons were near-perfect down the stretch. They gave up only two points after taking the 45-44 lead through Shelton’s shot, allowing them to control the pace of play on offense. Lipscomb held EIU to just five points in the fourth quarter and 15 points across the second half.
Sophomore shooting guard Blythe Pearson led the defensive effort with two steals, and the team forced 11 turnovers as a whole.
Meanwhile, the players found Sumski’s role a highlight in itself. This afternoon marked his third game in charge as the team’s temporary head coach in place of his wife, Lauren Sumski, who has missed the past two weeks after undergoing a surgical procedure.
“We love Chris [Sumski] so much; he’s the most enthusiastic coach,” Harrison said. “No matter how bad we’re doing, if we make a mistake, he’s going to call a timeout and talk about the things that we’re doing well, which helps us stay encouraged. He’s really stepped up big for us, we love him.”
The Bisons improve to 5-7 overall as they head into a well-timed Christmas break. They return to action Dec. 30 in an away game against Cincinnati.
“I’m trying to live in the moment,” a candid Harrison said when asked about their marquee matchup after the break. “I’m going on Christmas break to see my family, but when we come back, we’re going to get back into it and start the second half of our season very intentional.
“We lost a lot of games that we should have won, but now we know how that tastes,” she said. “Today was a highlight, but it’s not going to be the highlight.”
Photo courtesy of Eastern Illinois University athletics