The LadyKats hope to put an end to an eight game losing streak when they close out the regular season Wednesday against the McNeese State Cowgirls.
The game will also be important, because it will be the final college game for LadyKats’ star Alice Johnson.
Johnson this season has given the LadyKats a needed spark to an otherwise dismal season. Whenever the LadyKats got themselves behind, Johnson could always be relied on to get the crowd and her team back in the game.
The two teams last met on Jan. 30 in a 79-67 Cowgirl win.
The LadyKats are desperately looking for a win after a two-loss road trip last week that extended their losing streak to eight games.
The road trip started on Thursday at Louisiana-Monroe.
“Going into the Louisiana-Monroe game, I thought we were ready,” SHSU coach Erika Ritter said. “We had great practices leading up to it and I thought the team attitude was great. I just think that the early run that Louisiana-Monroe made just kind of took the sails out of us.”
The LadyKats were able to get on the board first, but soon after, the
Lady Indians put themselves far out of SHSU’s reach by going on a 21-point scoring run.
“We just missed some shots early, which led to easy transition basket,”
Ritter said. “Our poor shooting performance really helped them get some easy baskets. I didn’t feel like we really played as a team to try and get back into it.”
At one point during the game, the Lady Indians held a 40 point 70-30 lead. Not wanting to go out with such a deficit, the LadyKats turned it on at the end, outscoring ULM 42-19 in the final 12 minutes to end the game down 89-72.
The next stop on the LadyKats’ road trip was Natchitoches, La. to take on the Northwestern State Lady Demons.
SHSU upset the Lady Demons in their last meeting with a 77-69 overtime win at home.
The LadyKats could not make it two, and again, their opponents took control of the game with a monstrous scoring run, hitting 19 in a row.
Northwestern State was a big threat from the three-point line, hitting 8 of 14 in the first half and finishing the game going 11 for 25.
“In the first half, we got into foul trouble,” Ritter said. “So, we had to play a lot of zone in the first half, which you don’t really like to do against such a good shooting team. And we really weren’t reacting well in the zone, we were just kind of responding to what they were doing.”
The LadyKats had three players score in double digits, but it wasn’t enough to put them in contention for the lead. When all was finished, the Lady Demons avenged January’s loss with an 82-62 victory.
Despite the recent lack of success for the LadyKats, Ritter said she still has hope for her team in its final home game this week.
“We’re at home,” Ritter said. “All three of our wins are at home. But we’re going to have to limit our turnovers and take care of the ball. We’re going to have to keep them off the offensive boards and we can’t let them have those second chance points.”
The final game of the LadyKats season will begin Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at Johnson Coliseum.