By Dalton McGlone, Staff Writer
Bellarmine University’s women basketball team struggled to score Saturday, falling 65-49 loss to Truman State in Knights Hall. Bellarmine drops to 8-5 on the season and 2-3 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, while Truman State improves to 14-2 and 5-1 in the GLVC.
The Knights shot a season-low 24 percent from the field with only 17 made field goals, despite forcing 20 turnovers.
“We have to play with the same intensity that we had at the end of the game when it matters,” said Bellarmine head coach Chancellor Dugan. “We must have that intensity when the score is 19-18. We didn’t execute in the first half. We were supposed to go over screens and we didn’t do it.”
Forward Rachel Edmundson led Truman State in scoring with 13 points and shot 3-for-7 from the 3-point line. Maddie Re came off the bench and produced a double-double for Truman State with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Truman State’s 3-point shooting played a major role in its victory. As a team, Truman State shot 9-for-18 from deep, making up nearly half of their total offense. Truman State head coach Mary Eagan said relying on the 3-point shot wasn’t part of the original game plan.
Eagan said: “We were just taking what the defense was giving us. We are really experienced at the guard position. Our starting three have played a lot of minutes since they were sophomores. They work hard to shoot the ball well, and they’re shooting with a lot of confidence right now.”
Senior center Liza Tibbs led Bellarmine with nine points and helped set the tone on the defensive end with three blocks.
A positive takeaway from Bellarmine’s performance on Saturday was its ball security. The Knights committed a season-low nine turnovers.
Another bright spot was Bellarmine’s defense on the interior. Bellarmine held Truman State to only eight total field goals in the paint. Tibbs said that the team has made contesting shots at the rim a priority.
“We just go hard against each other every day at practice,” Tibbs said. “We play high-side help defense, and that’s something we worked a lot on this week. Our help defense and working together was really the key to winning the battle in the paint.”
Bellarmine will look to regroup Thursday against conference opponent William Jewell College. William Jewell is 8-5 on the season and 2-3 in the GLVC.