Lady Red Hawks Splits Season Opening Weekend
The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division II pre-season ranked #14 Lake Michigan College Women’s Basketball team opened up their 2019-20 season playing their first two games at the Kalamazoo Valley Community College Invitational on Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9, 2019. The Lady Red Hawks lost their first game on Friday 85-47 to Bryant & Stratton (WI) but bounced back on Saturday with a 77-46 win over Alpena Community College.
On Friday, Lake Michigan struggled to find any offensive rhythm and struggled to get the necessary defensive stops against a very fast Bryant & Stratton team. After the first quarter, the Lady Red Hawks only found themselves trailing by two points (11-9), but for the remainder of the game, the Lady Bobcats outscored the Lady Red Hawks 74-38, including a 23-11 second quarter in route to the 85-47 win by Bryant & Stratton.
Lake Michigan only shot 20% from the field while the Bryant & Stratton converted 46% of their filed goal attempts. The Lady Red Hawks did outrebound the Lady Bobcats 45-44 and forced them to commit 19 turnovers.
Sophomore Delaney Basker contributed 15 points and a game high 10 rebounds. Sophomore Aymia Flowers dished out seven assists.
On Saturday, the Lady Red Hawks led from start to finish and bounced back with a 77-46 win over Alpena Community College. After the first quarter, Lake Michigan raced out to a 27-10 lead due to hot shooting and their pressure defense. The Lady Red Hawks extended their lead to 30 points at halftime (44-14) and both teams played pretty even in the second half with Lake Michigan outscoring the Lady Lumberjacks, 33-32 for the final 77-46 win.
The Lady Red Hawks shot 36% from the field, including 33% from the three-point line, while holding Alpena to just 23% from the field. Lake Michigan also outrebounded Alpena 55-39, had 16 steals, and they forced Alpena to commit 27 turnovers.
Three players were in double figures, led by sophomore, Morgan Hughes who had 24 points. Freshman, Joh'nae Poindexter had 19 points and sophomore Aymia Flowers chipped in 17 points. Sophomore, LaChelle Knox had a game high of 17 rebounds and sophomore Delaney Basker had 12 rebounds. Poindexter also had four steals and Flowers dished out six assists.
After the first two games of the season, Head Coach, Patrick Daniel stated "Friday was not how we wanted to start the season, but it was definitely a wake-up call to this team that you have to play with energy and effort on every possession or you will find yourself down very quickly. Loved how this team responded on Saturday by getting a very good win especially playing back-to-back. We have a long season ahead and we have already faced some adversity with injuries to key players, but players are learning that everyone needs to step-up and our goal does not change of being better each day than we were the day before."
The 1-1 Lady Red Hawks will be back in action on Tuesday, November 12,2019 when they travel to Andrews University with a 6:00 PM game time.