No. 9 Lady Bluejays grind out road win
Tabor women win 17th straight, overcome second half meltdown at Bethany, 74-66
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
For 30:00 Saturday night, the Lady Bluejays looked about like the team they've been all season.
They shot the ball well, took care of it, and jumped out to seemingly comfortable leads.
The other 10:00 were a different story, though, in Lindsborg against the Bethany Lady Swedes.
Fortunately for the Bluejays (21-4, 14-1 KCAC,) they were able to knock out a big win on the road, holding off the Swedes, 74-66 for their 17th consecutive victory.
"We played really well for about 30 minutes and then we played really poorly for about 10," said a relieved Bluejay coach Rusty Allen. "Some of that is attributed to them (Bethany) too. They showed a lot of heart and played real aggressive and created a lot of problems for us."
Lindsborg has been a land mine for Allen during his four years at Tabor and how the game got so close was a good question.
Behind 16 and 11 points from the duo of Erica Hemmert and Donya Anderson, respectively, the Bluejays had a handful of leads 12 points or larger the first half.
Hemmert's basket barely 2:15 into the game tripped off a 9-0 run that swelled Tabor's lead to 13-5 more than 3:00 later.
Her three with 6:43 to go in the first half gave the Bluejays their largest lead of opening action, 31-13.
Hemmert scored a game-high 24 points from 10-of-15 from the floor.
But Bethany doubled Tabor over in scoring the rest of the way, 14-7, to get back into the game by halftime, 38-27.
Despite shooting 57 percent the first half, the Bluejays gave Bethany a 12-point boost from nine turnovers.
The second half opened looking like the Bluejays would glide to an easy win.
After being held to five points the first half, Staci Herman warmed up to score 14 the second half, including five in the opening 5:30 of the second half.
Tabor scored 12 straight points to jump to a 50-27 lead with 14:14 left with Jill Hein supplying five more points.
Katie Fast's basket just under 8:00 into the second half gave the Bluejays their largest lead of the contest, 54-29.
Somehow, Tabor seemed determined to let the Swedes back into the game, foolishly turning the ball over and giving up rebounds.
Something particularly glaring to Allen was his team surrendering 19 offensive rebounds to Bethany and 39 total which bettered Tabor by five.
"The number of offensive rebounds that we gave up had a lot to do with the general flow of the game," he said. "We were panicking. You give up offensive rebounds and make turnovers when you panic. It's all a result of our losing our composure, every bit of it."
What that added up to was the Swedes outscoring the Bluejays 31-13 in a span of 8:53 to close the gap to 67-60 with 3:03 left.
Anderson was not a factor the second half, going scoreless, but snagging a her game-high seven rebounds.
Hemmert gave the Bluejays some breathing room with under 2:00 to play, sinking four straight free throws to make it a three-possession game for Bethany with :53 remaining.
The Swedes could get no closer than eight, though, with the Bluejays hitting 7-of-8 at the line the closing 1:46 and 10-of-18 for the game.
"Trent (Johnson, Swedes coach) does a good job, you're not going to ever go against him and have them lay down," said Allen. "It's just not going to happen.
"In the big picture, I'm pretty pleased, we played 30 minutes really well and we got our first win at Bethany since I've been coaching at Tabor. For us to finish out and accomplish our goal, we're going to have to close the game out stronger on Thursday."
The Bluejays managed to hit 54 percent from the floor for the game while holding the Swedes to 34.
Tabor faces perhaps the game that will decide the KCAC title tonight, hosting second-place Sterling at 6 p.m.
The Bluejays wrap up the regular season at home Saturday against the Ottawa Lady Braves at 5 p.m.
