Spartan ladies lose heartbreaker

James Ayello
Staff Writer
The ECC women’s basketball team suffered a crushing 50-49 overtime defeat at the Spartans Events Center at the hands of the Morton College Panthers on February 12.

Although an improvement from their first crack at the Panthers earlier in the season, (50-41 in regulation) leading scorer Lauren Gabler (12 points) was not left optimistic.

“Honestly, we played horribly in both games,” Gabler said. “We didn’t do anything well. I felt like this was one of the worst games we’ve played this year, because in my opinion, we should have [beaten] them both times, but we just didn’t make shots.”

Gabler’s assessment of ECC’s shooting was backed by the teams stats. She and her teammates shot a combined 6 for 40 in the first half. Coach Jerry McLaughlin echoed Gabler, saying his team’s missed shots were a huge factor in the loss.

“We missed way too many shots from the field and from the foul line,” McLaughlin said. “We did not put the game away in the first half when we had the lead.”

Despite the team’s poor shooting performance, the Spartans held a 23-20 halftime lead, mostly due to defense. Freshman forward Sophie Sterricker attributed her team’s first-half success to defense as well.

“Our defensive press was working wonderfully,” said Sterricker. “We made Morton turn the ball over a lot.”

While their defense kept the Spartans in the game, it did not help them enough to win. The Spartans held the lead 49-48 with 18 seconds left in overtime when they fouled a Panther player. Morton sunk both free throws to take make the score 50-49, a score that wouldn’t change. The Spartans put up two more shots in those final 18 seconds but couldn’t get either to fall. While McLaughlin was disappointed with the loss, he was proud of the effort his team gave.

“Our team did not give up until the final buzzer,” McLaughlin said. “And if we had made either shot at the end of the game, we would have won.”