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Metro continues to cower in clutch

By Eric Lansing
lansing@mscd.edu

It was another close game for the women’s basketball team, but it was another close loss, as they fell to first place Nebraska-Kearney Feb. 15 in an attempt to close the standings between themselves and the Lopers at the Auraria Events Center.

After going undefeated in January (8-0), the Roadrunners lost three times in five games in February. Every loss has come down to the waning seconds, and Metro has failed to come through when it counted.

“It’s really hard, especially when we work on it in practice and it doesn’t transfer into the games,” Metro guard Ashley Mickens said on how difficult it is for her team to have to swallow these continuing losses in the final moments.

Kearney is one of the top scoring offenses in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference averaging 75 points per game. Metro has one of the top defenses, allowing less than 60 points per contest. But the ’Runners gave up a season-high 87 points the previous time they faced the Lopers on Feb. 2 in an 87-82 loss.

But in this game, Metro seemed to have their defensive hats on as they held Kearney to only 27 first-half points, holding them to a meager 31 percent shooting from the field.

But Metro couldn’t take advantage as they could only muster up 25 points of their own in the half.

“I think our defense stepped it up big time on the initial shot,” Mickens said. “But it was the offensive boards that hurt us. Our first attempt was great, our second was lagging.”

Metro head coach Linda Lappe said her team didn’t take advantage of how well her defense played in the first half and knew it was inevitable that Kearney’s offense would finally catch fire.

The Roadrunners’ offense looked anemic at times, holding onto the ball for the entire shot clock and throwing up last-second shots that had little chance of going in. Metro’s passing game didn’t help the flow of the offense as numerous pass attempts failed to find their targets, most ending up out of bounds.

“Sometimes we get caught standing around,” Mickens said. “Our offense is very free but it counts on movement, movement on the drive, screens.”

Offensive rebounding was the glaring stat of the matchup as the Lopers grabbed 19 boards on the offensive end. Metro’s defense did a great job contesting every Kearney shot and keeping the shooters on the perimeter. But they failed to collect those misses, and the Lopers capitalized scoring on numerous put backs for 19 points.

Mickens said it seemed like her team doesn’t take offensive rebounding seriously until the last minutes of the game. She also emphasized that her team seemed to play for the make rather than the miss because the Lopers took some easy shots.

After the disappointing loss to the Lopers, it didn’t take long for the ’Runners to jump back into the win column after they trounced Chadron State 75-59 the following night at the Auraria Events Center.

Metro’s offense finally got going, scoring 75 points, including 42 in the first half to cruise to their 12th conference win on the season. Mickens led the way, scoring a game-high 17 points and pulling down a career high 19 rebounds.

Metro guard Stephanie Sauter nailed four 3-pointers in the game, giving her the school’s single-season record of 81 on the year. She passed teammate Paige Powers who hit 79 back in 2005.

The 1-1 weekend puts Metro’s record at 16-9 overall with a 12-5 record in the RMAC. The Roadrunners will finish their regular season Feb. 22 when they face Colorado School of Mines at the Auraria Events Center.