It almost felt like two separate games for the Lady Bisons basketball team in their 86-79 loss at home to the Murray State Racers on Saturday.
In the first half, sloppy play, fouls and turnovers were the story. Murray State had 13 fouls and 6 turnovers, while the Lady Bisons had 11 fouls and 7 turnovers in the first twenty minutes of action.
In the second half, the Lady Bisons surged back from being down by 16 points at one point, and with the help of a Chandler Cooper three-point shot, Lipscomb tied the game at 56.
However, the Racers pulled away in the closing minutes with the aid of free throws and missed Lipscomb shots to hold on for the victory.
Head coach Greg Brown said that in the second half, the team did make improvements.
“We did a better job of getting the ball inside, [getting] drives and cuts right there,” Brown said.
“I thought we did a better job of executing that part of the game.”
Junior Sara Bliss led the Lady Bisons in scoring with 22, 12 of those points from the arc.
Redshirt sophomore Ashley Southern picked up a double-double for the game. She scored 20 points and led the team in rebounds with 15.
“My teammates were just looking for me inside in the second half, sending me the ball. [It] helped a lot,” Southern said. “We played really well today. I thought, at the very end, we were playing well, but we should have been doing it the whole game.”
Southern also said that the team was playing harder in the last few minutes.
“We had much more intensity in the last minute and a half than we did in the whole game. It wasn’t even close, honestly,” Southern said. “I think we played the scoreboard too much instead of getting out there and trying our hardest at all times.”
A challenge coming into the game that the Lady Bisons had to prepare for was the play of Murray State’s Keiona Kirby. The junior guard entered the game averaging nearly 18 points per game, and scored exactly that in the first half.
“The idea was to limit her touches and try to make her play to her weak hand and give them angles to score, but we didn’t do a very good job of that. We took bad angles, so we’ve got to work on that,” Brown said of Kirby, who finished the game with 29 points and eight rebounds.
Brown noted the Lady Bisons ability to out-rebound the Racers, make good shots and find success from the line, but he said that the team needs to still improve, looking ahead to a seven game stretch on the road.
“This two week break before we play again is great timing for us to really work on some things,” Brown said.
The Lady Bisons play next at Jacksonville State on Dec. 14, at 7 p.m.
Game notes: The Racers’ bench outscored the Lady Bisons’ bench, 31-15. The Lady Bisons rebounded 53 shots; the Racers rebounded 47. Murray State scored 16 second-chance shots, and Lipscomb scored 32.
Additional reporting by Cory Woodroof
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics