Brescia rallies, but falls short in opener

11/5/2008

By Mark Mathis

Messenger-Inquirer

One of the best things John Swickrath learned in his opening night as the Brescia University women's basketball coach was that his team won't quit.

"In my first game coaching women's college basketball I learned some things, and one of those was that I see our kids are going to play to the end," Swickrath said.

The Lady Bearcats didn't open the new coach's era with a win on Tuesday night, but they did give good effort in falling to Lindsey Wilson 56-45 at the Brescia Campus Center.

"They're a top 25 team, and we were excited to have the opportunity to play them," Swickrath said.

Lindsey Wilson (3-0) was one spot out of the top 25 in the preseason NAIA poll, but it certainly had a frontline worthy of national recognition.

Lindsey Wilson controlled the inside with players like Viktoria Krell, Bethany Spillman, Ewa Bukowska and Valery McKerman. Krell is a 6-foot sophomore center from Germany who scored 14 points and pulled down nine rebounds. Bukowska added 10 points.

"They have one of the best post players we'll face in Viktoria Krell," Swickrath said.

Spillman is a 6-footer from Glasgow who finished with eight points.

The smaller Lady Bearcats had trouble all night with Lindsey Wilson's size inside. The Blue Raiders constantly got second and sometimes third shots on their offensive possessions. Brescia struggled blocking out Lindsey Wilson's taller inside players and often only got one shot per possession.

Those numbers led to a staggering 56-21 advantage for the Blue Raiders on the glass.

Brescia was able to get good shots in the first half, but it had a hard time getting them to go down. That fueled a 15-0 Lindsey Wilson run that left the visitors leading 20-9 when the Lady Bearcats took a timeout at the 9:05 mark.

Brescia made a run back at the Blue Raiders after the timeout, cutting the deficit to 20-16 on a 3-pointer by Natasha Farris, a steal and basket by Brittany Bird and another basket by Caitlin Owen.

But a 3-pointer by Sierra Rambert (12 points) started another 12-0 run by Lindsey Wilson that Brescia could not recover from.

The Lady Bearcats shot 25 percent in the first half (6-of-24) and finished the game at 28.6 percent from the floor (16-of-56).

Bird led Brescia with 13 points. Christal Floyd added 11 points and Paula Carver had 10. Carver was 2-for-9 from 3-point range, and a lot of those were just off the mark.

"We had wide open shots," Swickrath said. "We had some jitters, first-game nerves, all that."

LINDSEY WILSON (56) -- Krell 14, Rambert 12, Bukowska 10, Cora 8, Spillman 8, McKerman 2, Apple 2.

BRESCIA (45) -- Bird 13, Floyd 11, Carver 10, Owen 4, Farris 3, Houston 3, Anson 1.