In the women’s basketball team’s last game before Christmas, the Yellow Jackets lost easily, 86-54 at the hands of Ohio Wesleyan. 

Although Waynesburg [1-10] fell short in Monday’s game at Allegheny, this time, head coach Sam Jones saw positive things to take away from the 85-74 loss. 

“There were some improvements from our last time out,” Jones said, “so I’m happy to see we were improving on some things. I was pleased to see that the girls came back [from break] ready to go and in good condition.”

One improvement Jones pointed out was in rebounding, where the Jackets beat the Gators [6-5] on the glass, 38-34. The 74 points Waynesburg scored was also its second highest output of the season. The Jackets were lacking, however, on the other side of the ball. Allegheny shot 51% from the field, led by Rylie Donovan, who scored a game-high 21 points. Zoe Soilis [18] Jenna Manke [14] and Julianna Skowron [13]  also broke double figures. 

The Gators went 4-7 from three-point land in the first half, and Jones felt this contributed greatly to how the night played out. 

“They started early on hitting some 3s, which kind of opened the floor up a little bit,” he said. “They had a couple of [post players] as well that were active inside. They were disciplined enough to wait for us to make a mistake, then when we made a mistake they took advantage of it.”

The Gators led 44-35 at the end of the first half, and never let that advantage slip away, stretching the lead to as much as 16 in the second half. 

For Waynesburg, the front court of Brooke Fuller and Zoie Smith led the way, contributing 19 and 18 points respectively. Smith also posted 11 rebounds, the fourth double-double of her freshman season. 

“They’re both hard workers,” Jones said. “They both are learning. I think that’s one of their best attributes. They want to learn, they want to be better and make adjustments as the game goes along to keep doing good things.”

Waynesburg will be back in Presidents’ Athletic Conference play Saturday at Geneva. Tipoff is at 1 p.m.