By Rebecca Dann

Ladies basketball suffered a close loss on their home court this past weekend, falling to Allegheny College 66-61. This second consecutive loss brought the Ladies’ North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) record to 4-7, while boosting the Allegheny Gators’ up to 6-4. “It was a tough game,” Avery Anderson ’15 said. “Allegheny has always been a really good team and they’re one of those teams that never stops playing, so you have to play consistently well for 40 minutes in order to beat them.”

Both teams appeared to be evenly matched at the start of the first half, as the lead quickly jumped back and forth between the Ladies and the Gators. Kenyon managed to gather more momentum 10 minutes into the game, gaining an 18-17 lead and holding onto it for the remainder of the first half. The Ladies led by seven points with just two minutes left in the first half after a steal by Anderson followed by a layup by Griffin Tullis ’18. The Ladies maintained their lead at the end of the first half, 35-21.

Though the Ladies retained that lead into the second half, Allegheny slowly managed to catch up, tying the score twice. Both teams fought to gain an advantage on the other but neither team was able to pull ahead.

With just two minutes left in the game, Allegheny led Kenyon 62-61. The Ladies were unable to get past their opponents’ defense to score again, allowing Allegheny to score a total of five points in the final 21 seconds of the game to win 66-61.

“I thought we fought really hard,” Head Coach Suzanne Helfant said. “I thought we played well enough to win. Unfortunately, they made big plays in the last minute and a half and the ball wouldn’t fall for us in the last minute and a half.”

The Ladies still showed several impressive performances. Tullis lead the team with 11 total points, while Sarah Hobbs ’15 followed closely behind with a total of 10 points. “We played great defense, but we just couldn’t convert enough on offense, and so, we fell a little bit short there, but we did fight the entire time,” Anderson said. “So I think as far as effort goes, it was a good game for us.”

The team will continue practicing this week despite not having a game scheduled midweek, which is usually the norm during the height of the season.

“I think it’s nice that we have a week to prepare for them,” Anderson said. “This sort of gives us a little bit of time to step back and focus on the things that we need to improve upon and one of those things is definitely finding ways to score on offense because we’re creating a lot of turnovers with our defense, but we aren’t always capitalizing on those opportunities on offense.”

This coming Saturday, Kenyon will play Ohio Wesleyan University (NCAC 5-6), to whom they lost earlier in the season 51-43.

“I think it’s a good point in the season to have a week off,” Helfant said. “The basketball season is extraordinarily long, and when you get a week where we can give [the players] a midweek break and give them a day off to recharge their batteries, I think its really helpful for us. We’re going to watch some film of us playing and not just scout our opponents, and I think that really is a way to reinforce some positive things that maybe you lose sight of when you lose a close game.”