Spartans continue to struggle versus UAA

Stephen Wong, Contributing Reporter

With the University of Chicago Maroons visiting on Sunday, the Spartans had the difficult task of stopping a team riding a two game win streak and a three game stretch where they had averaged 91 points.

Following a big loss to Washington University, the Spartans’ Brooke Orcutt came ready to play, scoring 27 points while bringing down seven rebounds. Despite Orcutt’s efforts and the Spartans overcoming a 12 point deficit in the first half they fell to the Maroons 80-66. The Spartans struggled mightily early on the offensive side due to Chicago’s swarming defense that left passing and shooting lanes seemingly nonexistent.

The troubles extended to the defensive end as well as there were numerous miscommunications between players that led to open shots for Chicago. Through the first ten minutes of the game, Spartan’s head coach Jennifer Reimer had to burn through three timeouts to try and sort out the issues that seemed to be plaguing the Spartans early on.

At 8:00 minutes left in the first half the Spartans were down 28-16, but after another timeout call by Reimer as well as a defensive change to a 2-3 zone, the Spartans became much tougher on defense while also cutting down on their turnovers on the offensive end. The team went on a 17-6 run and briefly took the lead but closed out the second half only down by one.

During the second half the Maroons made adjustments to counter the Spartans change to a zone defense and stretched their lead to 19 points midway through the last half. The Spartans had no answer for the Maroons’ high paced offense as the Maroons continued to hit shots and maintain their lead. Spartan Laura Mummey also factored largely into the game as she poured in 14 points and grabbed 5 rebounds. The Spartans end the weekend 2 games under .500 at 7-9 and 1-3 in UAA play.