The Hillsdale College women’s basketball team has played several games down to the wire recently. But this week, they played past it – twice. After a 92-64 loss at Northwood on Feb. 4, the Chargers took Lake Superior State to double overtime before falling to the Lakers 78-75 on Saturday despite a record-setting night from sophomore Allie Dittmer.
“We’re definitely getting better every game,” head coach Todd Mitmesser said. “We just haven’t been able to put together four good solid quarters in many games. In the Northwood game, we played well in the first quarter, and decent in parts of other quarters, and not so great in other parts. Court savvy, knowing what to do when, is something that comes with age.”
The Chargers continued a trend of speedy starts against Northwood, stretching an early lead to 24-12 in the second quarter. However, 14 points and four assists from junior Morgan Blair and 12 points from senior Kayla Geffert couldn’t counteract Northwood’s offensive response. The Timberwolves scored 31 points in the second quarter to erase the Chargers’ lead for good.
On Saturday, the team returned to the Upper Peninsula for the second time in three weekends to take on Lake Superior State for the second time this season. The Chargers raced to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter and held the lead through the third quarter, but defensive mistakes and 4-for-10 free throw shooting in overtime allowed the Lakers to sneak past the Chargers, who are now 9-12 overall and 6-11 in the GLIAC.
“We came in with a lot of confidence because we beat them the first time,” Geffert said. “This game, all their key players had career nights and we missed six free throws in overtime, and that really brought us down.”
Dittmer played the best game of her career to compete with the Lake Superior State attack, scoring 29 points on 14-for-18 field goal shooting, which earned her second place for most field goals in a game in Hillsdale College history.
“Allie just went off,” Geffert said. “It was awesome to see her break that barrier. It’s just a glimpse of how good she’s going to be in the future.”
According to Dittmer, explosive individual performances come from an offense that moves the ball well.
“A lot of it had to do with touches,” Dittmer said. “We were really focusing on getting the ball inside. Also I don’t shoot a lot of jump shots, so they were sagging off me and I made a couple of those. That opened things up for other people to post up.”
Despite tough losses, the Chargers are maturing both individually and as a team, Mitmesser said.
“I’ve been telling the players for a month now that the wins will come,” Mitmesser said. “Part of learning how to win games is going to come from maturity, and we, at times, are still playing like we don’t have that experience to pull through when we aren’t playing so well.”
According to Dittmer, the lessons the Chargers learned this week will help them prepare for two tough conference opponents.
“On offense, we want to add twists, to throw something new at them in the end of the season,” Dittmer said. “On defense, we’re looking to stop their offense by doubling the post and limiting their touches. That’s what we need to focus on because defense wins the game most of the time.”
The women’s basketball team returns to Hillsdale this week, hosting Michigan Tech at 6 p.m. on Thursday and Northern Michigan at 1 p.m. on Saturday.