Led by a defense that allowed just five points in the first quarter, The Yellow Jackets improved to 2-2 on the season after an 0-2 start with a 77-66 win over Hiram College in their last game before beginning Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) play. The Terriers entered the contest with a 1-4 record and three losses by double digits, but head coach Sam Jones said they were not going to take them lightly.

“They’ve got some good players, and they’ve lost a couple of tough games really,” Jones said.

For Jones, a big reason for the win was the defense, particularly in the first half.

“I think it all started on the defensive end,” Jones said. “We were rotating particularly well we were not letting shooters get good looks. We were contesting every shot, and I thought we just did a really nice job on defense, and that led to easy hoops on the other end.”

The Jackets outscored Hiram 16-5 in the opening frame and ended the first half with a 38-19 lead. Waynesburg outrebounded the Terriers 25-16 in the first 20 minutes, and shot 45 percent from the field to Hiram’s 25 percent. The Jackets held senior guard Allison Vannoy, who came into the contest averaging over 15 points per game, to just 1-5 shooting in the first half. Vannoy ended the first half with five points and finished with 12 total while going 4-17 from the field. Jones was pleased with how the defense took away opportunities from Vannoy.

“We were on top of kind of how they go about getting her the ball and getting her open looks,” Jones said. “So we wanted to make sure that she didn’t get open very often, and quite honestly, two of the four shots that she hit, we just didn’t do our job on those two shots. Other than that, we [did our jobs], so it was really just about making her work hard and making sure that she was always shooting a contested shot.”

Hiram didn’t go quietly after the first half, outscoring Waynesburg 28-16 in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 54-47 heading into the last ten minutes. But the Jackets held on, outscoring the Terriers 23-19 in the final frame to seal the win.

Junior point guard Monica Starre led Waynesburg with 19 points, while senior forward Addy Knetzer, senior guard Rachel Eng and senior Mackenna Drazich contributed 15, 14 and 11 respectively. Senior guard Jazmine Scott led the Terriers with 13 points off the bench. For the second game in a row, Starre flirted with a triple-double, finishing with nine assists and seven rebounds to go along with being the game’s leading scorer. In Waynesburg’s previous contest against Bridgewater Tuesday, Nov. 21, Starre posted 12 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. For Jones, although a triple-double would be a unique accomplishment for Starre, it isn’t a point of emphasis.

“If I’m a betting man, I’ll think at some point in the next two years, she will [achieve a triple double] just because of how good she is,” Jones said. “But it’s not something she and I have ever discussed. If I know her, I doubt that she’s paying any attention to that at all.”

Knetzer, who averaged over 16 points and 11 rebounds as a junior in 2016-17, posted her first double-double of the season with 15 points and game-high 14 boards. For Jones, Knetzer’s early struggles were magnified by taking place right away as opposed to in the middle of the season.

“If you look, last year, I probably could find a three-game run where she just didn’t really do things well,” Jones said. “But when [Knetzer struggles in] games 15, 16 and 17 it doesn’t stick out like when it’s games one, two and three. We faced some tough matchups and some good quality post players in those games.”

Jones said that Knetzer is drawing more attention from opposing teams than in her first three seasons and that she looked more like her usual self Saturday.

“Obviously, because of the year she had last year, she gets a lot of focus that she maybe didn’t necessarily always have,” Jones said. “I wasn’t too concerned, and she looked a little more like herself today than she had [earlier in the season].”

Waynesburg finished the game shooting 47.6 percent from the field, while Hiram shot 36.5 percent. The Jackets outrebounded the Terriers 41-33, and also had 17 assists to Hiram’s 13.

There are a few aspects of Saturday’s game that Jones looks to build on, such as Hiram outscoring Waynesburg in the second half and the Jackets turning the ball over 17 times. A key to improving, Jones said, will be for the team to understand what its strengths are, and how to deal with adversity as the season moves forward.

“Really it’s just about continuing to learn,” Jones said. “Continuing to learn what makes us successful, continuing to learn when we’re [not successful], what’s causing it and, when we can’t avoid it, just staying mentally focused throughout the whole scenario.”

Waynesburg opens up PAC play Wednesday, Nov. 29, when it faces Grove City (1-3, 0-1) at the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse. Tipoff is at 5:30 p.m.

“Grove City is always a heavy pressing team, so we’ll have to be prepared for their press, and we’ll have to do a good job taking care of the basketball,” Jones said. “They’re always a very disciplined team offensively, and they don’t score quickly off the press. They make you be patient on defense, and they wait for you to make a mistake and then they capitalize on it.”

The Jackets won all three meetings with the Wolverines last season—with two coming in the regular season and the other in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Tournament.

“I would assume that they’re going to definitely want to get back at us,” Jones said. “We beat them three times last year, and I know when I lose to someone three times, it’s always on my mind, so I would imagine we’re going to get a pretty amped up, pretty high energy focused team that’s disciplined and plays well.”