Northwest Missouri State's women picked up two wins and have now exceeded their win total from last year. They have now won seven games after having won six games all of last year.
But coaching a team can present an interesting challenge sometimes. When Coach Mark Kellogg has talked to his team about the need to finish games strongly, they have done so but have struggled out of the gate; they were only up two points against Lindenwood at halftime before outscoring them 43-16 in the second half. Another case in point -- Rogers State, where Kellogg talked about the need to finish strongly, but his team dug itself into a 21-point first half hole before rallying to win by three. But then Kellogg told his Bearcats that they needed to start the Kearney game off strongly. They did -- scoring the first nine points of the game and building up a double digit halftime lead. But then they let up the pedal and had to withstand several Kearney charges, although they never let it get under double digits in their 67-56 win. The goal will now be to put together 40 minutes of basketball instead of just playing well in spurts.
Lindenwood was off to a 1-4 start and they were a very young team, with one freshman and two sophomores as starters and only two seniors on their roster. But that did not seem to matter for the first 24 minutes of the game as Lindenwood went toe to toe with Northwest. Northwest was missing a ton of shots in the first half, settling for too many jump shots on offense and turning over the ball 14 times in the half. Northwest was struggling in particular with their inbounds plays as the Lions were denying the inbounds plays hard on defense. They shot 25.9% in the first half. But the reason they were ahead 26-24 was the free throw line, where they outscored Lindenwood 10-1 from the line.
But a lot of young teams get into "Here we go again" mode when they start falling behind and that was the case with Lindenwood. The Lions fell behind 32-26 at the 16:32 mark and then their coach called time out and was not happy with his team. It was clear that they had fallen into "Here we go again" mode and they were mentally beat despite the fact that it was still a close score.
From there, Northwest finally started getting to the rim on offense and getting some offensive boards; they scored 10 points in a four minute span to go up 42-28 behind Tember Schechinger's 3-pointer with 13:25 left. Northwest continued to force turnovers on defense and Meridee Scott's steal put them up 22 points at 52-30 with 10:17 left in the game. Northwest's half-court trapping defense was working as the Lions would frequently break it easily. But once they got into their offense, they would get lost and throw the ball away as their inexperience told.
Northwest continued to pull away despite Lindenwood's attempts to get back in the game; Meridee Scott and Maggie Marnin took charges on defense and Northwest began lobbing the ball at will into Marnin as Lindenwood didn't have an answer for her size. Points in the paint were key in the second half along with points off turnovers. Northwest outscored Lindenwood 24-8 in the paint in the second half after being outscored 12-8 in the first half. Northwest outscored Lindenwood 17-6 in the second half off turnovers after outscoring them 13-9 in the first half.
Annie Matthews led Northwest in scoring with 13 points. Ashley Thayer had 12 points, four assists, and two 3-pointers. Tember Schechinger had a double double with 10 points and 11 boards. Maggie Marnin had 8 points and three rejections. Monique Stevens had five assists, 7 points, and three steals. Eight different players wound up in the scoring column.
Annie Matthews started off strongly for Northwest in the Kearney State game, scoring six points in the first 11 minutes of the game as Northwest scored nine points in the first three minutes of the game and built up a 19-8 lead at the 8:50 mark of the first half. Monique Stevens took a charge on defense during the stretch. The half court trap was working to perfection for Northwest as they were speeding up Kearney into some quick shots and then Northwest would get some good transition looks off of those misses. By the half, they were up 34-19.
But Kearney was a better team than Lindenwood; they were better than their reputation as they were ranked at the bottom of the pack in preseason voting. They had thrown a scare into Northwest's final four team, giving them all they could handle a couple of years ago before one of their players took a timeout they did not have and Northwest went on to win by 12.
When you have a big lead against a strong opponent, it is usually only a matter of time before their run comes. Kearney was helped early in the second half by some bad officiating; Monique Stevens took a perfect charge on defense, only for the referee to call it a block. She picked up her third foul shortly afterwards, which meant she had to be careful for the remainder of the game. In another situation, one of the Kearney players rolled into Tember Schechinger and knocked her down on a rebounding situation, but nothing was called. In another play, Ashleigh Nelson went in for a layup and was hammered from behind, but nothing was called. Aided by these officiating errors, Kearney was able to trim Northwest's lead to 34-22. But to their credit, Northwest's players kept their composure and never got a technical foul or let the lead get under double digits; every time Kearney would get it to 10 or 12, Northwest would hit some critical shots to hold them off.
Kearney did some things differently that seemed to throw Northwest off; on offense, Kearney made an adjustment and would push the ball up the floor after made baskets by Northwest; that kept Northwest from setting up their trap and allowed the Lopers to get into their offense. Another thing they did was they would play man to man, but they would then sag like a zone defense and close off passing and driving lanes; Northwest would then take some drives that were not there and turn the ball over.
But Northwest made some outstanding defensive plays in the half that kept Kearney from making a game of it. Reserve post player Alexis Boeh came off the bench after Maggie Marnin picked up her third foul and blew up a ton of lob passes into the post; that prevented Kearney from getting some easy looks. And Monique Stevens took a charge on defense down the stretch.
Ashleigh Nelson, who hit some key points in the second half, led the scoring with 17. Annie Matthews had 13 and Maggie Marnin had 12 as Northwest was able to establish its post game inside. Tember Schechinger, who played with a taped shooting hand, still had 9 points and 7 boards. Monique Stevens had 6 assists. The team collected a ton of steals led by Boeh and Nelson with 4 each. Schechinger and Stevens each had 3.
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