The Waynesburg Lady Jackets started fast, scoring 31 points in the first half against a tall and tough Case Western Reserve Lady Spartans team. Yet, a low-scoring second half halted the Lady Jackets’ attempt to pick up their first win of the season. 

The Lady Jackets ended up losing to the Lady Spartans 69-49, moving to 0-2 on the season. 

This was the fourth straight year the two teams played each other and all four attempts have ended with a Lady Jackets loss. Last year, the Yellow Jackets had opened the season against Case Western, losing 94-48.

Similar to Muskingum, Case Western had also returned the same core from last year’s team, so expectations remain high for them as well, especially as it was their first game of the year. 

The first seven minutes of the game saw the Lady Jackets get going quick, as freshman guard Mia Henkins started off the game scoring seven of Waynesburg’s first 16 points. Case Western would finish the quarter on a 12-1 run to take the lead going to the second quarter. 

The second quarter would see both teams going back and forth at scoring the basketball. Case Western would go into halftime with a lead at 33-31, and Waynesburg would go into halftime without one of their star players as freshman center Kayla Howard would leave the game to an injury. 

“Kayla is a huge part of what we do,” said Waynesburg Head Coach Sam Jones. “She is a great defender. She was holding down the paint up to that point. It was hard for us to adjust.” 

Howard’s absence led to Case Western being able to capitalize on the offensive side of the ball, as the Lady Jackets in the third quarter would shoot 2-13 overall, 0-5 from the three-point line, and 3-10 from the free-throw line. 

“They upped their pressure a little bit. We didn’t respond well,” Jones said. “For whatever reason we stopped remembering how to play defense.” 

Waynesburg would end up trailing 51-38 after three quarters.

The fourth quartersaw similar trends continue for the Jackets, as they would shoot 3-14 from the filed during that stretch.

Mia Henkins would finish the game as the leading scorer for Waynesburg with 11 points, all in the first half, as she was held to two shots in the second half. And they also held Kara McFadden to an 0-7 shooting night, earning her only point at the free throw line. 

“We came into the game feeling that Henkins and McFadden could hurt us,” said Case Western Reserve Head Coach Jennifer Reimer. “It was a little bit of not executing defensively early.”

The Lady Jackets’ defense had a difficult time defending grad transfer Morgan Micallef, as she led Case Western in scoring with 15 points, with 13 coming in the first half. Freshman Mya Hartjes turned the game around in the third quarter, scoring 11 of her 14 points on the day and disrupting Henkins in the third quarter. 

“Micallef was an insane spark off the bench. She is our toughness and that was what we needed,” Reimer said. “Our team really feeds off of Mya Hartjes doing Mya Hartjes things. But again what Morgan and Mya did off the bench they got us to where we needed to be.” 

This stretch of games does not get much easier for the Lady Jackets; they face an 0-2 Pitt Greensburg team and then tough conference games at Bethany and Westminster to go into Thanksgiving break.

“I am going to fix what needs to be fixed and I am going to realize who we are,” Jones said. “I am going to set a standard that we need to be better than we are, and the ladies are going to do a good job because they have to this point.”