In returning to classes, UPG’s women’s basketball team continued their winning ways by schooling the LaRoche Redhawks. However, conference-leading Medaille College snapped the Lady Bobcats’ six game winning streak Saturday by dealing out a 69-68 defeat.

Head coach Carol Gelet said the 20 point victory over LaRoche wasn’t unexpected even though the Redhawks were undefeated in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference at the time.

“They have an extremely quick point guard and we thought we could contain her,” she said. “We had to adjust from our full-court press because she could dribble right through us, but we did well with her in the half-court. I wasn’t surprised with how easily we beat them.”

The team’s one point setback to the Medaille Mavericks, the 18th ranked team in the nation, was their first loss since Dec. 1.

Gelet said the team went into the game thinking they could win.

“I knew we could be competitive,” she said. “We made a few defensive mistakes and made turnovers at key times, but we walked out of there thinking we should have won the game.”

Leading the team during the two game stretch were Nicole Reiser and Amanda Sheaffer with 37 and 33 points respectively. Reiser also paced the team with 16 assists.

Sheaffer said that no one on the team wants to take too much credit for their success.

“Everyone on the team is committed to everybody else,” Sheaffer said. “There isn’t one star on the team. Everybody contributes evenly.”

Gelet echoed Sheaffer’s sentiments by saying the team works incredibly well to utilize people to their strengths.

“For this team, an assist is as good as a bucket,” Gelet said. “A box out and a rebound is just as important as a steal. The team knows what each person is good at and sets up situations to let that happen.”

The Lady Bobcats are nationally ranked in the top ten of several statistical categories. They are ranked third in assists per game with 20.1, seventh in assist turnover ratio at 1.04, eighth in scoring offense with 79.5 points per game, ninth in steals per game with 15.4 and tenth in field goal percentage at 46.4 percent.

The team is on the road for their next three games and will take on the Hilbert Hawks this Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Notes:

Senior guard Tiffany Menhorn needs 60 points to tie former Bobcat standout Annie Sral for the individual career scoring record at UPG. Menhorn is averaging 14.2 points per game. Should she continue to score at that rate over the Bobcats’ road trip, she will be on pace to claim the record at home against Lake Erie on Jan. 26.