Lady Cougars lose two on the road

The MVNU women’s basketball team (7-15) was handed two league losses last week, falling to Marian University and Huntington University.

Wednesday evening the Lady Cougars fell short of Marian University 84-49. Freshman Dani Ellerbrock led the Cougars with 14 points. Junior Sierra Basista tallied 11 points in the loss.

After scoring only four points in the first quarter, the Lady Cougars roared back with 30 points in the second quarter to pull within 13 points of Marian at halftime.

However, the Lady Knights were too much to handle, making 52 percent of their shots and scoring 26 points off of MVNU’s 18 turnovers.

The Lady Cougars traveled to Huntington University on Saturday for another league matchup.

There, junior Natalie Carpenter’s career-high 27 points was not enough for the Cougars. MVNU fell to Huntington University 87-73.

“We had a slow start which hurts. The second half we fought back but we had too many lapses on the defensive end,” said the Lady Cougars Head Coach Amanda Short.

Basista added 17 points and Ellerbrock scored 11.

“We had some good production from our guards, Basista and Ellerbrock,” said Short. “We scored a lot of points this game, way above our average, but we need to tighten up the D if we want to win games.”

Short also credited Huntington’s 17 offensive rebounds for the Lady Foresters’ victory.

The Lady Cougars remain positive as they head into the last few weeks of the regular season. The next game is Wednesday at home against Grace College.

“We are still growing as a team but I’m excited for this week,” Carpenter said. “We still need to improve certain aspects of our game. I have faith in our team and I am ready to see how we compete.”

The Lady Cougars will tip off against Grace at 6 p.m. on Wednesday as part of a men’s and women’s doubleheader at Ariel Arena.