Oh, how things change in only a week’s time.
The LadyKats basketball team brought its conference record on the road to 0-6 after falling 60-48 at Lamar on Thursday. The loss came only five days after upsetting second place Northwestern State at Johnson Coliseum.
“It was all a matter of being ready to play the game,” LadyKats coach Erika Ritter said. “We go to Lamar and there’s no excitement, no emotion, no fire. We just go out there and go through the motions and get beat. It was a quite disappointing performance after such a great win.”
Stephanie Trachier, “Southland Conference Player of the Week” following the previous two games, was held to 10 points, but managed to come away with five steals.
Katrina Barclay had eight points and Crystal Jackson had four, but the LadyKats’ effort was led by Alice Johnson, who finished Thursday’s game with 23 points, 13 rebounds and three steals.
“Her 13 rebounds were very good,” Ritter said. “But we need to shoot better than that. We shot 31 percent as a team and Katrina Barclay was the only one who shot halfway decent. She shot 44 percent from the field, but everybody else was 38 percent or less.”
The LadyKats had an off night from the floor, shooting 31 percent, compared to Lamar’s 49 percent.
“Lamar had a great shooting night,” Ritter said. “We allowed them to get steals at the top of the key which allowed them to go down and make an easy lay-up. They made some tough shots from the three-point line, and they don’t usually shoot well from the outside.”
The LadyKats shot 50 percent from the floor against Northwestern State. Not only did they find a decrease in shooting Thursday, but in rebounds and steals as well.
“If we want to win games, we are going to have to shoot as a team, probably 45 percent or better, that is our team goal,” Ritter said.
A key part of Sam Houston’s loss, said Ritter, comes from the LadyKats not being able to adapt to the zone game Lamar was playing.
“Lamar played a zone the whole game,” Ritter said. “We haven’t been comfortable versus zones all year. We did practice on it for two days, but we didn’t execute our zone offense at all.”
Monday night the LadyKats looked to redeem themselves after their showing against Lamar, and they did just that, overcoming the visiting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders 66-64.
Johnson led the LadyKats to a nail-biting victory, getting 25 points, seven rebounds and four steals. She scored the last five points for the LadyKats.
“Alice shot 60 percent from the floor,” Ritter said following Monday’s game. “And that’s what you want from your post players, and she made some tough shots down the stretch.”
The LadyKats opened up the game outscoring the Islanders 18-4 in the first nine minutes of the game, but by the time the first half was over, they found themselves behind 32-27.
When the second half came around, Johnson, Kelley Kramer, and Barclay were instrumental in getting the LadyKats back in the game and keeping them in position to take a potential win away from the visitors.
In addition to Johnson’s 25 points, Barclay had 17, Kramer had 13, Trachier had 10 and Jackson scored one.