| The Lady Eagles Jana Glover works against an NIC player during a league game on Friday night at the BDAC. NIC won 95-50. |
With a 95-50 loss Friday and a 112-78 loss Saturday against fourth-ranked North Idaho College, CEU’s sixth-ranked Lady Eagles are now 1-7 in the conference.
“That’s the worst we’ve been beaten in years at our place,” said Coach Dave Paur after Friday’s loss. “We got beat up, and we got beat up bad. There was no cause for it, because with 9 minutes to go, we were within striking distance, and we didn’t do it.”
“There was three or four times, we got the lead down to 11 points, and missed a foul shot or a lay-up. We would turn it over, and they would come down and hit a three. We had at least three times that we could have pushed the lead under 10 points. But we didn’t.”
“It’s almost like we’re afraid to put the effort out to win. It’s easier not to work that hard,” Paur continued. “There’s not enough passion right now. We have individuals with passion; Veva (Whitear) has that passion, But it takes all five people on the court to have that passion. It takes a full team.”
Whitear led her team Friday by scoring 20 points, hitting seven of 12 field goals, shooting 67 percent from the line by making four of six free throws and leading with six steals and five assists.
Other leaders for CEU in Friday’s game included Jana Glover and Whitney Fardig with 8 rebounds each. NIC’s Sheena Hinkle led her team with 22 points, while teammate Sara Dennehy led in two other categories with 6 assists and 12 rebounds.
“Our emphasis in practice for 2 weeks has been to take away the three. And they hit as many threes as they felt necessary to kill us,” Paur said Friday.
NIC scored 30 points from behind the three point line Friday, hitting 58 percent from outside.
“That’s the most points we’ve scored this year,” said Paur after Saturday’s high-scoring game. “They shot extremely well. I think we put them in that range of shooting by putting them on the foul line too many times.”
From the line NIC shot 85 percent, sinking 40 of 47 free throws.
“We’ve got them playing hard. We’ve got to get them playing harder and getting to the right spot. The passion was there more tonight. Now we just have to get to the right places,” continued Paur.
NIC’s Hinkle led the team in scoring, with 27 points, with CEU’s Janeen Nelson right behind with 25. Krislyn Wallace took 10 rebounds. Wallace, Glover and Whitear each had 4 assists, with Whitear also leading with 5 steals.