The AU women’s basketball team failed to sustain offensive momentum in a 57-46 loss to Lehigh University.
This Eagles team has established themselves as a strong shooting team, but they only shot 29.4 percent from the field and 18.8 percent from three on Saturday. Senior forward Liz Leer led the team with 12 points, followed by Nicole Ryan at 10 points.
Head Coach Matt Corkery said that the main reason for the loss was inconsistent offensive play.
“We just never got in a rhythm offensively,” Corkery said. “Never got anything going consistently for a long period of time, and our offense really sputtered and struggled most of the game.”
For most of the first half, the team fought on defense to try to make up for a struggling offense. After early baskets by Lisa Strack and Tori Halvorsen it seemed as though the Eagles were struggling just to keep possession of the ball.
With nine minutes remaining in the opening half, the Mountain Hawks took the lead, which they would not relinquish until the midway through the second half.
Heading into the second half, AU trailed, 22-21. The Eagles failed to score for the first few minutes of the half until Leer came up with a layup followed by another two points. With Lehigh leading 40-30 with 10:02 remaining, the Eagles went on a 12-2 run to tie the game up at 42.
The Eagles hit their stride when Ryan hit back three-pointers followed by another three from Strack. Unfortunately after that run, the defense faltered.
“That spurt was when we were playing our best, it was when we were pushing the tempo, when we were in control, when we were attacking them,” Leer said. “Then they hit a wide open layup because we didn’t communicate enough on defense and then we couldn’t come back after that.”
In the remaining minutes, the offense improved at the expense of the defense. Every time AU scored, Lehigh scored twice, leading to the 57-46 Mountain Hawks’ victory.
Lehigh’s Erica Prosser led the Mountain Hawks with 29 points, five rebounds and three steals. She completely dominated the lackluster AU defense.
“Prosser killed us, I mean she was running down our throats,” Leer said. “It’s not just whoever’s guarding her to take care of it and we didn’t do a good job of stopping her.”
In preparation for Bucknell University on Wednesday at Bender Arena, Corkery said the team needs to work on their mental game more than anything.
“I think that’s the biggest area of improvement for us is mental, you know our concentration, our focus, and our mental toughness,” he said. “It’s a quick turnaround. We’ll have three days to get ready for Bucknell, a team that’s very good. For us I think it’s getting back to the basics and what we do as far as our roles on the team and just trying to execute them.”
The loss knocks AU’s conference record down to a 5-3 and their overall record to 15-7. The Eagles are in second place for the Patriot League.
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