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St. Cloud State University
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SCSU falls hard again
By Drew Herron
Published:
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Kristine DeGroot drives to the hoop Thursday night against the University of Northern Colorado. The Huskies lost the game 67-44.
The scene was indicative of the way the last few weeks of the season had gone for the SCSU women's basketball team.
They just couldn't catch a break against Northern Colorado. The Huskies fought hard defensively, but their shots weren't falling as the team shot a miserable 27.6 percent from the field to lose their fourth game in a row.
The first half was a relatively tight contest with the teams exchanging the lead until UNC pulled ahead for good with just over five minutes remaining in the first.
The downward spiral then began for the Huskies, and the harder they tried to play catch-up, the more frustrated they became.
"We were really trying to get the ball out and hit some big three's and we were under a lot of pressure," senior post Jonelle Streed said. "We had our backs up against the wall, we were down by 15 early in the second half and that just really killed us."
What started as a manageable eight-point deficit at the half, soon ballooned into 15 and then 20. The Bears were extremely tough inside and had a considerable size advantage.
Their twin towers of senior forwards Jill Fadenrecht and All-NCC center Missy Borell made things difficult for the Huskies and forced them into a one-dimensional role of shooting from the outside.
"We tried to get back into it and they have great shot blockers, so that made it tough. She (Borell) does play good defense and they have great help. They have like four people swarm around the ball," sophomore guard Molly Jensen said.
"That's what we practiced on when there's double-teaming in the post, to kick it back out. We just weren't hitting our shots."
"They're very, very big so that's hard. We're an undersized team and they have two of the biggest posts in the league," Streed said. "We outrebounded them which was huge, but we just couldn't put our shots in and that was our biggest problem tonight."
SCSU is no stranger to poor shooting performances lately. Over the last seven games, the team has shot a dismal 36 percent, eclipsing the 50 percent mark only once against MSU, Mankato. Thursday's performance was their lowest of the season.
"I don't know why we weren't making our shots," Jensen said. "Some games we do, some games we don't."
"We have a very young team so sometimes our confidence will get down and then we don't shoot as well, and then everybody feeds off everybody else," Streed said. "It goes either way. If you're making them, everyone's making them. But if you're missing, everyone's missing."
Streed, playing in her final game at Halenbeck, turned in possibly her best performance of the season. She recorded her first double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
"It's kind-of emotional, I didn't really think it would be," Streed said. "I love playing here, I love the people. My career has absolutely flown by. I love this place. I just wish we could have shot a little better on my last night."
SCSU entered the season with high hopes of contending for the conference crown, but have experienced one disappointing setback after another.
The first crack in the wall came during the opening minutes of the fourth game of the year when their captain, and team leader Jessica Abrahams, was lost for the season after suffering a knee injury during a mid-court collision. Nevertheless, Streed won't let this season's disappointments spoil her experience at SCSU.
"There were enough positive memories that I probably won't really remember this game perhaps, I'll be remembering the other good memories because there's tons and tons of them," she said.
Saturday night came and went, and with it went the likeliness of SCSU's playoff hopes. Against UNO at Sapp Fieldhouse in Omaha, the team fell to 3-12 in conference play after an 83-69 defeat.
The Huskies never led in the contest and the Mavericks were up by as many as 19 points in the second half. The closest SCSU came was within eight points late in the first half, but a poor shooting performance once again hurt them.
The Huskies went a miserable seven for 23 in the opening half and answered that only with a slightly better 14 for 40 performance in the second, shooting 30 percent for the game.
Once again, they outrebounded the opposition 51-42, led by junior post Kris DeGroot who grabbed 13 boards. The Mavs led by 10 at the half 39-29 and built on the lead, thanks in part to a six for 10 performance from beyond the arc in the second.
Jensen led the Huskies offensively with 16 points. Sophomore guard Katie Huschle was close behind with 15 points and three steals.
