The Hillsdale College women’s basketball team lost its only game this week after Trevecca Nazarene University postponed at the last minute due to complications with Covid-19.
The Chargers have held their ranking in the G-Mac this week, remaining fourth overall.
The Trevecca Nazarene women’s team was unable to travel, leaving the Chargers warmed up for a game that would not happen.
“It was due to COVID,” Assistant Coach Brie Brennan said. “They were unable to play, they didn’t even come up here. There’s not much teams can really do with difficult situations like this. We were ready for them, and we will be next time too.”
Two days later, the Chargers lost to the Kentucky Wesleyan College Panthers 78-57.
“We had some good practices and a little extra time to prepare,” Brennan said. “We thought we were pretty ready to go, but they showed up and were ready to play. They have a very distinct style of play that they brought out in that game. It’s very fast, very in your face.”
Senior guard Grace Touchette led the Chargers in scoring for the game with 13 points, and was followed by junior forward Sydney Mills with 10 points and nine rebounds.
“Kentucky Wesleyan is a very fast, high pressure team, they cause a lot of problems defensively for a lot of teams in the league, including us,” Mills said. “For us, our big thing was being able to contain their drives.”
Although the Chargers had a plan ready, their defensive scheme did not work out as well as they had hoped.
“In the first half, we didn’t really come out with a great start,” Mills said. “As the first half went on, we didn’t have the best defensive game that we could have had. As we went into the second half, I think we really cleaned up our defensive game. But, at that point, we just weren’t really shooting well from the three-point line, which is usually one of our strengths.”
Junior forward Maverick Delp agreed that the loss was as a result of both defensive and offensive efforts.
“We’re usually a really strong shooting team,” Delp said. “When we aren’t shooting so well, our defense kind of contains assets to make up for that. So, this time, since our defense didn’t really contain, and our shooting wasn’t great, we just kind of got ourselves in a hole.”
Although the team did not perform as they had planned, there were still Chargers who played a good game.
“I thought Dani Salenbien had a really good game,” Delp said. “She made a couple of tough plays, drew a couple of fouls on one of their good players. I thought she had some really good hustle plays and played a super tough game.”
The Chargers sit at 10-7 with a 7-4 conference record, good for fourth in the G-MAC. The only teams ahead of them are Kentucky Wesleyan (9-3 G-MAC), Walsh College (9-2), and Ashland University (10-0). The team feels hopeful going into their next game against Ohio Dominican University, having already beaten them 78-63 earlier this year.
“We know this team and we know what they’re trying to do, so right now we’re just tweaking little things and getting ready for them,” Brennan said. “ODU is a great team and on any given night anyone can beat anybody else. We just have to be ready at any time to secure a dub.”
The Chargers play Ohio Dominican Thursday, Jan. 27 at 5:30, and then host the Cedarville University Yellow Jackets Saturday, Sat. 29 at 1:00.
