USM women drop KCAC contest to Bethel

The University of Saint Mary women dropped a 77-69 game to Bethel College in Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference action Saturday, despite getting a combined 43 points from Samantha Ciani and Rani Jacobs.

“We’re getting all-conference performances out of a couple of players, they’re putting up big numbers, but it’d be nice to see someone else get in double digits,” head coach Mike Basler said. “I feel good about scoring 69 points, but you look on the other side and we gave up 77 and 25 of those came at the free-throw line. ... Our effort was good, we played hard and battled through some adversity. It was just the same thing as down at their place, we got to the eight minutes mark and they were cleaner than we were. ... You’ve got to give them credit.”

Ciani had a double-double with 25 points and 15 rebounds. She was 9-for-13 from the field and 7-for-9 from the charity stripe in the game. Jacobs nailed four 3-pointers to help score 18 points. Jacobs and Ciani each had five assists to lead the team in that category.

“I thought Rani shot the ball pretty good,” Basler said of the junior guard. “She knocked down four 3s. That’s good for her, and she had five assists so she was dishing the ball.

“Ciani was pretty much unstoppable. She touched the ball 13 times and scored on nine of them. ... She had a great, great game. She played with high energy. That was a pretty good little inside-out combo.”

Katie Joens chipped in seven points for the Lady Spires and Sarah Beshears and Lindsay Stacks each scored five. Janae Garcia had four points and five rebounds while Mindy Eckert and Jasmine Johnson put up two points apiece.

One of the biggest differences in the game, Basler said, was the amount of points that USM gave Bethel at the free-throw line.

“They shot 25 free throws,” the Saint Mary coach said. “That was a key in the game I think. That was one of the stats we looked at it. We had 27 fouls to their 19. ... Some of our fouls just weren’t smart decisions.

“I think we could have guarded them better. There were times our defense was good, but then it was just discipline mistakes, like we’d guard them well for most of the shot clock then foul with two seconds left. Those break your back.”

Bethel hit 25-of-35 attempts from the free-throw line in the game while USM made 14-of-20. They were led in scoring on the night by Hannah Blackburn who had 19. Angela Woods added 13 for the Threshers and Krishna Phifer and Samantha Askew each scored 11. Holly Anthony also got into double figures for Bethel with 10 points in the win.

Basler also pointed to the 31 turnovers by the Spires as one of the main factors behind the loss. 
“Turnovers were something we talked about and we had 17 in the first half and of those six or eight were (unforced),” Basler said. “We just weren’t executing to the best of our ability.”

The Spires, who are now 6-18 on the year and 3-11 in the KCAC, will play at 6 p.m. at McPherson on Thursday. USM is looking to end a three-game skid that began after they earned an upset win over Kansas Wesleyan on Jan. 28. With just four games left in the KCAC schedule — Thursday’s at McPherson, at home Saturday against Ottawa, at Tabor on Feb. 18 and at home against

Bethany on Feb. 20 — Basler said his squad needs to put some more marks in the wins column.
“The next four games are all winnable,” Basler said. “... They’re four games we have to get to help our seeding.”