The Tiger basketball teams played rematches of last weekend’s games this past weekend from Jan. 29-31. The women went 2-0, while men went 0-2 on the weekend.
The women came away from this weekend of conference matches with two wins over the bottom two conference teams, while the men fell in two close match-ups.
After setting season bests last weekend at home against Centenary, the women again set a season best for points scored and margin of victory against the Ladies on Friday with their 100-33 win.
The Tigers never trailed, and by halftime they were up 45-13. Less than 10 minutes into the second half their lead was 50 points.The Tigers shot 55.9 percent from the field throughout the game and shot 21-36 (58.3 percent) in the second half. Defensively, they held Centenary to 23.6 percent shooting for the game.
“Defense is always going to be the key to keeping games competitive, and over the course of the season we’ve gotten really good at using and mixing up the defenses that are going to be effective against any particular opponent,” said women’s head coach Cameron Hill.
First-year guard Rebecca Gordon was perfect on the night shooting 7-7 from the field, 3-3 from three-point line, as well as 3-3 from the free throw line.
Senior center Taylor Hollins and sophomore guard Allison Staley each contributed 14 points off the bench. Staley was 4-6 from three, while Hollins had six rebounds and shot 7-10 from the field.
“Anytime you can expand your experience throughout your entire bench””that’s valuable,” Hill said. “We had players really step up, and when you go into a game and you have success””that translates into confidence.”
The Trinity men fell 77-64 once again to the Centenary Gents after a hard-fought game that was close until the final minutes.
The Tigers took a 30-25 lead into halftime. The lead would not last however; with four minutes left in the game, the Gents extended their lead to 14 points.
“We came out of the locker room too relaxed,” said sophomore guard Joseph Thomas, “They tend to go on a quick run in the first three or four minutes and””if we don’t contain it””it tends to get out of control.”
Senior guard Matt Selling had strong second half scoring and led the team with 22 points in the loss. He was 8-16 from the field and 6-12 from the three-point line. First-year forward Aaron Knoop was the only other Tiger in double-digits with 14 points.
Senior guard William Young had five assists in the game to become the all-time leading assister in Trinity history with 360 assists in his career surpassing former record holder Mark Murphy (1985-89).
With a 60-35 road win at Colorado College on Saturday, the Tiger women clinched a berth in the SCAC championship tournament.
Neither team shot the ball particularly well from the field in the opening half””Trinity shot 30 percent and Colorado shot 25 percent.
Trinity held the 27-17 lead at the break after finishing the half with a 12-0 run.
The Tigers continued to struggle shooting the ball in the second half, but the defensive effort was one of the best of the season.
Trinity held Colorado to 22.2 percent shooting, and allowed six field goals in the half.
“We knew these teams aren’t great at scoring, so we set goals to keep them under certain shooting percentages and to only allow them to score a certain number of points,” junior Anecia Richardson said. “Locking down on defense takes the pressure off the offense and helps us win games.”
Staley and Hollins played important roles, each scoring 12 points off the bench.
After a 70-65 loss in overtime to Colorado College, the Tiger men are 0-3 in overtime games.
Senior guard Jimmy Clark hit a three point shot at the end of regulation to tie the game at 55-55 and force overtime, but the Tigers could not pull out the win.
Sophomore forward A.J. Pulliam led the Tigers with 22 points, and Clark also contributed 20 points off the bench including going 4-4 from three-point range.
“Knocking down your first shot can be game changer because you are more confident in yourself, and the team feeds off that,” Thomas said. ” If we can figure out a way to keep our confidence up, we’ll see better [scoring] production across the board.”
The Tiger men fall to 2-18 overall and 1-8 in conference. The women””after outscoring opponents 160-68 this weekend””improve to 17-3 and 8-1 in conference.
Both teams are on the road this weekend, taking on Southwestern University today Friday, Feb. 6 and Texas Lutheran University Saturday, Feb. 7. The women play both games at 6 p.m. and the men play at 8 p.m.
