by Catherine Rogers
Multimedia Editor
The women’s varsity basketball team faced the Lady Crusaders of Tennessee Temple University (Chattanooga, Tenn.) on Oct. 28 in their first game of the season.
The game began with the Crusaders hitting five of their first six shots and stealing an early lead of 14-3.
“Honestly, I was wondering how our girls would respond at that point,” said head coach Christian Papp.
The response was definite. The remainder of the first half saw the Lady Lions fight their way to a halftime lead at 30-29.
“Without question, the number one positive from the game was that [the girls] didn’t throw in the towel…. We refocused on the game plan and fought back,” said Papp.
The Lions held the lead by as many as eight points throughout most of the second half but turned the ball over to the Crusaders too many times and had trouble scoring near the end of the game. The Lions let the game slip away in the last five minutes and handed the Lady Crusaders a win with a final score of 56-49.
Leading scorers for the Lions were junior forward Anna Thomas (16 points) and junior wing Sara Barnett (11 points).
Papp’s expectations for this season lie in the collective growth of the team and specifically in getting more comfortable with man-to-man defense and individual offensive fundamentals.
“If the girls will continue to have faith and be ‘true believers’ in the things I’m teaching, we could be a very strong defensive team,” he said.
The Lady Lions host two games this week against Oakwood University (Huntsville, Ala.) on Wednesday at 5:30pm and Pensacola Christian College (Fla.) on Thursday at 7 p.m.