Last week, the GW women’s basketball team seemed to temporarily overcome the inexperience and injury woes that had plagued them all season, winning consecutive games to get their season back on track.
Saturday at Saint Joseph’s, though, their winning streak came to an abrupt end as the Colonials fell to the Hawks 63-47.
The loss was the first for GW (5-15, 2-5 Atlantic 10) since the team’s defeat at Villanova Jan. 21. Since then, the Colonials had beaten two straight A-10 opponents, La Salle and Massachusetts, after losing 14 games in a 15-game stretch.
The game opened slowly for both teams. Over the first 5 minutes of the game, GW turned the ball over six times, while Saint Joseph’s missed its first eight shots, but the struggles for both teams did not last long. Sophomore Tiana Myers, playing out of position at point guard, scored eight of her team’s first 14 points. With about five minutes to play in the first half, freshman Shi-Heria Shipp cut GW’s deficit to one point at 21-20.
After that basket, however, GW missed its last seven shots of the half, one of the scoring droughts that would ultimately doom the Colonials.
“On the road you cannot have those lapses,” head coach Mike Bozeman said. “The way that Saint Joe’s is playing at home this year, you just can’t have those collapses; and we did have those. That kind of put the game in a situation where we were fighting uphill.”
Saint Joseph’s ran away with the game in the second half, outscoring GW 36-25, with 24 of those points coming in the paint. With the Hawks heating up, the Colonials went ice cold, shooting just 32 percent from the floor in the second half, and at one point going 7 minutes without a point.
Hawks forward Brittany Ford had 23 points off the bench to lead all scorers, with 19 of her points coming in the second period. Amy Gillespie also had a big game for Saint Joseph’s, scoring 12 points and grabbing seven rebounds.
Even with the loss, Bozeman said he senses no frustration in the locker room as his team remains focused and takes the season one game at a time.
“They’re all high-spirited, all through the whole year. Today’s game was a little tougher,” Bozeman said. “The effort is still there. [The girls] believe in themselves, they believe in the system. But sometimes your body doesn’t answer the call, and I think that’s what happened with them today.”
To add to the injury problems that have already sidelined three players for the rest of the year, sophomore Kay-Kay Allums was limited 14 minutes in the game due to a lingering nerve injury.
Myers was the biggest bright spot for the Colonials in the game. The sophomore scored 17 points and only turned the ball over twice while running GW’s offense, leading Bozeman to comment that point guard may be Myers’ true position. Sophomore Sara Mostafa had 11 points and eight rebounds.
GW will look to regroup as they host the No. 10/10 Xavier (AP, ESPN/USA Today) Wednesday at the Smith Center. The game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start.
