Title drifts out of Lady Badgers reach with Saturday loss

By James Tilson

02-21-2019

SALT LAKE CITY—Snow College women’s basketball team’s dreams of clinching an outright Scenic West Athletic Conference regular season title drifted away on Saturday, as the Lady Badgers lost to Salt Lake Community College 61-55.

The Lady Badgers won their last game against Utah State University – Eastern on Thursday, 66-60, to take the lead in the SWAC race with only two games left. If the Lady Badgers could have defeated the Lady Bruins on Saturday, they would have clinched the SWAC regular season title, and the No. 1 seed in the Region 18 Tournament.

“It was definitely tough,” said Head Coach Mike Russell about the loss to SLCC. “Defensively we did not do what we needed to do. We gave up too many points in the paint, and we did not rebound the ball. Lack of depth, fatigue, a bad quarter at the wrong time, giving up 19 turnovers, all played a part in our loss.”

Through the first half of the game against the Lady Bruins, Snow maintained a lead and looked like the better team. However, even in the first half, Snow allowed SLCC to stay in the game with a plethora of unforced turnovers that lead to easy SLCC possessions.

Coming back in the third quarter after leading 33-29 at half, the Lady Badgers seemingly hit a wall, and their offense fell apart. They were outscored 6-17, and let SLCC take a 7-point lead, 39-46.

In the fourth quarter, the lady Badgers attempted a game comeback, but could never completely close the gap, never getting closer than 3 points.

Savannah Lucero and Sydney Pilling both had 11 points, and Paige Farnsworth (breaking out of a mini-slump) contributed 10. Megan Carr just missed getting a double-double by scoring 9 points and pulling down 9 rebounds.

The Lady Badgers’ last regular and home game of the season is tonight at 5:30 p.m. versus Southern Idaho. There is still plenty for the Lady Badgers to play for in their last game. “We are tied for first with SLCC, and could still win a share of the conference championship with a victory Thursday,” Russell said. “It would be our first conference championship since 2001.”

With a win, and a loss by SLCC, the Lady Badgers could even get the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament. A win would net the Lady Badgers no less than the No. 2 seed. The winner of the conference tournament would get an automatic bid to the NJCAA National Tournament in March.