Eagles snag close win, fall to Mustangs
A long road trip to New Mexico filled up the Eagles’ basketball team’s weekend, as they went to face New Mexico Highlands on Friday and Western New Mexico on Saturday. Action for the weekend started with neck-and-neck, nail biting action when the Eagle women’s team won a close victory over the New Mexico Highlands Cowgirls, 66-64.
For the first half of the game, the score was close with New Mexico Highlands leading for the majority of it, with an exception of one tie. Then in the remaining seconds of the half, Dallas Shaw, sophomore guard of Buffalo, Wyo., hit a three point shot that put the Eagles up by one before halftime. Shaw also led the Eagles with another double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds.
In the second half, the Eagles contained the lead until two minutes into play, New Mexico Highlands’ Haley Grossman made a bucket in the paint to capture the lead 33-34. Haley had ten points in the game, but leading for the Cowgirls was Alyssa Lopez with 22 points. After two of Lopez’s free throws and with the score tied at 64, Lisa Durden, junior guard of Inglewood, Calif., drew a foul and sank both free throws giving CSC the 66-64 lead. In the final seconds, Alyssa Lopez missed a field goal for the Cowgirls and gave the win to the Eagles.
Previous leading scorer Kattie Ranta, junior guard of Rapid City, S.D., was having trouble making the shots drop, but helped the team out on defense.
“Her shots weren’t dropping that night and all athletes have nights like that. She definitely helped us out and played solid defense and grabbed 12 rebounds,” Connealy said.
The Eagles, now 3-11 overall and 3-1 in the RMAC conference, had two other players score in double digits. Greer Babbe, junior forward from Papillion, finished with 11 points and five boards and Hattie Guzman, freshman guard of Scottsbluff, had 10 points. Chadron also led in field goal shooting percentage with 36 percent, compared to Highland’s 29 percent.
On Saturday, the Eagles took on Western New Mexico Mustangs. The game started out much the same way as on Friday, with two ties, but after a good trey by the Mustangs’ Larissa Loera, they galloped off to lead the rest of the half with a score of 36-20 at halftime.
In the second half, Chadron trailed by 20 for most of the time but still saw some good highlights.
“I am proud of them, it was probably the best the team has played as we’re a young team and we have gone through some growing pains,” Head Coach Tim Connealy said. “Everything that everyone did helped us get the win.”
Helping the Mustangs to the victory was their 40 percent three point shooting average, compared to CSC’s 25 percent average. Also, free throws proved to be the deciding factor in the Mustangs’ favor as they made 14 out of 15, while the Eagles only made 9 of 13. Kattie Ranta’s hot hand returned and she led the Eagles with 12 points, but was the only Eagle to score in double figures.
The Eagles will host Colorado State University- Pueblo on Friday and Univeristy of Colorado-Colorado Springs on Saturday. Both games are RMAC games and are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. in Armstrong. CSU-Pueblo is currently ranked number three in the RMAC and UC-Colorado Springs is number four.
