ACCC women’s losing skid goes to 7

Allen County Community College’s women are not where their head coach wants them to be 10 games into the 2010-2011 season.
“We’re still doing the same things, which puts us in a hole during the first half of games,” said Marcus Hicks, ACCC head women’s basketball coach, following his team’s 69-54 loss at home to Highland Community College’s Scotties Saturday.
The loss dropped the Red Devil women to 0-2 in Jayhawk Eastern Division play and to 2-8 overall. They have lost seven straight games.
“You’ve got to do the work in practice. If you won’t do it in practice then you won’t do it in a game. Our players are not working hard in practices to improve in areas that are given us problems,” Hicks said.
Those areas are defense, rebounding and taking care of the basketball. Hicks said when a team gives up 21 points off turnovers, 19 second-change points and put a team on the line 20 times, “you’re going to get beat.”
The Red Devils played well in spurts. Down 3-0, Rackell Goldson was fouled and she hit the first of two free throw attempts. On her second toss, ACCC teammate Aeriss McNeese claimed the rebound, passed it out to Goldson who connected for a field goal to tie the game.
Allen County did lead for a few seconds. Rebecca Tittel’s three-pointer put Highland up 11-7. Queona Walker answered for Allen County with a trey and Goldson’s field goal put ACCC up 12-11 at 13:20.
Tracie Weege began her assault from the outside for the Scotties. Weege would hit five threes in the game. She helped push Highland out to a 21-12 lead midway through the first half.
A putback and free throw from McNeese and two charities by Kynesha Nisbett closed the gap to five, 26-21, at the 6:13 mark. Danielle Best answered a Weege three with a trey of her own for ACCC.
It was 29-24 but the Scotties finished the half with an 11-0 run. Highland was up 40-24 at halftime.
Allen County opened the second half with three straight turnovers. The Red Devils had 18 for the game.
Little runs by the Red Devils weren’t enough to catch the Scotties. Allen County outscored Highland 30-29 in the second half.
“We talk about defense, rebounding and taking care of the basketball all the time. We’re just not executing things in games,” Hicks said.
“We’ll work more on defense then team offense I guess. Until we learn we have to do the work in practice to be successful in games, we’re not going to be.”
Allen County was without the services of 6-1 post player Jazmynn Johnson and 5-6 guard Maurissa Shaffer because of disciplinary reasons, Hicks said.
Goldson paced the Red Devils with 22 points, nine rebounds and three steals. Walker fired in 12 points and handed out four assists.
McNeese scored 10 points. Nicole Swick had 10 rebounds.
Allen County shot 30.5 percent from the field. It was 13 of 19 at the free-throw line.
Highland had a decisive advantage on the boards, 52 to 37. The Scotties shot 42 percent, 26 of 62, from the field and were 10 of 20 at the line.
Weege ended up with 26 points for the Scotties. Vanessa Durbin added 13 and Coretta Hall had 10.
Allen County goes to Dodge City tonight, Butler on Wednesday and to Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa, Okla., on Saturday. That will conclude pre-Christmas play for the Red Devil women.
Allen County (24-30—54) (FG/3-pt): Walker 1/2-4-3-12, Swick 1-0-1-2, Goldson 7/2-2-1-22, Best 1/1-1-4-6, McNeese 3-4-2-10, Nisbett 0-2-4-2. TOTALS: 13/5-13-15-54.
Highland (40-29—69) (FG/3-pt): Hall 5-0-4-10, Weege 5/5-1-1-26, Clark 2-3-3-7, Lockwood 4-1-3-9, Durbin 3/1-4-3-13, Burnett 0-0-1-0, Hollander 0-0-4-0, Tittel 0/1-1-2-4. TOTALS: 19/7-10-21-69.