Earlier in the week, it was physicality from Westminster that caused problems for the Waynesburg University women’s basketball team. Thursday, it was length coupled with careless turnovers against Carnegie Mellon that led to a fifth straight loss.
Waynesburg fell 77-56 at Carnegie Mellon in a non-conference matchup. The loss puts Waynesburg at 1-8 this season, and 0-10 all time against the Tartans.
Carnegie Mellon’s height advantage, as well as its ability to take advantage of Waynesburg’s turnovers made the difference in the game.
“They’re length bothered us a little bit, but really we were just careless with the ball,” Waynesburg coach Sam Jones said.
The Jackets fell behind 20-10 after the first quarter, and trailed 33-23 at the break following a sloppy first half. By halftime, Waynesburg had turned the ball over 21 times.
“We had more turnovers in the first half than what we average in a game typically,” Jones said.
Depth helped the Tartans improve to 5-4, with ten CMU players showing up on the score sheet. Four of them had double digit totals, and sophomore Emily Archer led the way with 16 points.
By comparison, Waynesburg only has ten players on the active roster and only two of them had ten points or more in the game.
Senior Alli Delany had 12 points for Waynesburg, coming from four three’s, but the Jackets leading scorer was sophomore Brooke Fuller with a season high 23.
This was the second game over winter break for Waynesburg, but Jones doesn’t believe it makes a difference in how he prepares, although there are some slight personal advantages.
“A game’s a game, other than that I like playing in the middle of the day so I can get home at a decent hour,” Jones said jokingly. “I can’t speak for my players, but I prepare for every game the same and try to put us in a position to be [better] than we have been.”
The Jackets best quarter was the third, where they out rebounded Carnegie Mellon, 12-7. Despite this they were still outscored 21-20, before the Tartans closed the contest with a 23-13 fourth quarter.
Waynesburg has one more game before Christmas. It’s Another non-conference game Saturday at 1:30 in Delaware, Ohio against Ohio Wesleyan.
After losing the turnover battle two to one, it’s clear to Jones what the Jackets must work on first next game.
“We have to take better care of the basketball,” Jones said. “We’ll start there and once we fix that we’ll move forward to other things.”