The Cowgirls are back for another home game. The Cowgirls took on Saint Mary’s, who is 0-1 on the season so far, and your Cowgirls are 1-0. The Cowgirls are coming off a win against Colorado Christian on November 6 with a score of 70-31.
Now the hope for this game was that the Cowgirls would have a slow start like they did against Colorado Christian. The Cowgirls started the game with a young team on the court; they started Karla Erjavec (So.), Alba Sanchez Ramos (So.), Quinn Weidemann (So.), Tereza Vitulova (So.), and one Senior Taylor Rusk. The Cowgirls are led by sophomore Karla Erjavec with 14 points a game and then-freshman McKinley Bradshaw right behind her with 13 points a game.
The Cowgirls started the game with winning the tip-off and going scoring 3. Tereza Vitulova made a layup and was fouled and made the free throw. With Saint Mary’s answering right back, the game started fast for both. Halfway through the first quarter, the speed of the game slowed down. Both teams were struggling to get shots to go down, and unfortunately for the Cowgirls, none of their shots went down, and Saint Mary’s got theirs to go down with 3:45 left in the first Saint Mar’s got a 12-7 lead. The first quarter did not end in the Cowgirls favor. Fouls and missed shots only got them 2 points in the last 3 minutes, while on the other side of the court, Saint Mary’s extended their lead to 11. The score at the end of the first quarter was 20-9 Saint Mary’s on top.
“Our bench is strong.” Said Head Coach Mattinson. “We were able to come out and shoot the paly and play defense and execute the offense.”
The second quarter was rough. The Cowgirls could get the shots to fall, and the foul count kept going up. By the 2-minute mark, Saint Mary’s had the score up to 31, and the Cowgirls still at 20, but the Cowgirls got a second wind and got the score up to 25, dropping the lead to 6. The score at the half was Cowgirls 25 – Saint Mary’s 31. The Cowgirls shot from the paint at 28.9% and 22.2% from behind the arc. Saint Mary’s shot 41.4% from the paint and 41.7% from behind the arc.
“We focused on defense.” Said Alba Sanchez Ramos, “We focused on making stops on defense, and the offense came with it.”
The Cowgirls started the second half off strong with a 3-point shot from Alba Sanchez Ramos. Saint Mary’s answered with a two-pointer, but Alba wasn’t having it. She answered with another 3 pointers. The Cowgirls defense came out in the third quarter, they were stealing the ball and shutting down the Saint Mary’s offense with blocking shots or simply playing good defense to make it hard to get to the basket. The Cowgirls were on fire and found a second wind that, with 4 minutes left in the third quarter, the Cowgirls had the lead down to three points.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the AA was loud and on overdrive with energy. The Cowgirls were making shots, and the crowd was backing them every second. With 8 minutes left, Quinn Weidemann got the Cowgirls within one (51-50). With under 7 minutes, the Cowgirls came down the court and put it back out to Taylor Rusk who then shot a 3-pointer, and it was good for the lead, the Cowgirls had the lead of 53-51.
The Cowgirls continued to push and got their lead up to 61-53. Quinn Weidemann and Alba Sanchez Ramos hitting consecutive 3 pointers. The fourth quarter was all Cowgirls. The Cowgirls shot 41% from the paint and 45% from behind the arc. They kept Saint Mary’s to only 31% in the paint and only 12% behind the arc.
“It was nice to get a win against a team like Saint Mary’s,” said Mattison. “It will boost our confidence and also prepare us for other teams like Saint Mary’s in our own conference.”
The Cowgirls are now 2-0 and will travel to Denver, Colorado next week to play Denver on November 14.
