Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 Both OPSU basketball teams suffered losses on the road this weekend as the women dropped a conference loss to the University of Texas-Permian Basin and the men fell to Fort Hays State.
The Aggie women played first on Saturday in Odessa, Texas and kept things interesting in the first half; tying the game up four times and going up by five points after only eight minutes of play. However, the Lady Falcons went on a shooting spree soon after, and would leave the court 14 points up with a score of 42-27 to end the half.
A UTPB foul started the second half, and Aggie forward
Courtney Sheets sunk both of her shots from the line. The Aggie baskets were heating up thanks to layups good from Sheets and
Sarah Johnson and a jumper from
Sharice Papaleo; the Falcon lead dropped to eight with only two and a half minutes off the clock. The Lady Falcons answered back and brought their lead up to 14 points with 16:26 still left in the game, but the Aggies did not back down. Through combined efforts from six different players, the Aggie women went on to score 20 points to the Lady Falcons' 11, and brought themselves within five points of the lead at the eight minute mark. That would be the last of the scoring runs for OPSU though, as their only points would come from free throw shots for the remainder of the game and UTPB took the win with a final score of 87-69.
Senior
Sarah Johnson shot a season-high 20 points and also led the Aggies with four assists.
Courtney Sheets was a whopping 10-12 from the line, finishing the game with a total of 12 points and bringing in eight rebounds.
Sharice Papaleo led in rebounds with ten and ranked third in scoring with eight total points. The Aggies improved their shooting percentage from the field with 37.8% but dropped in three-pointers, sinking only 2-15. Their record falls to 0-6 overall and 0-2 in the Heartland Conference.
OPSU's men took on the 25th-ranked Tigers of Fort Hays State Saturday afternoon in Hays, Kan. FHSU jumped out to a 7-0 lead thanks to early fouls and a turnover from the Aggies, but
Jeremy Newton shook things up with the first three of the day and the Tiger lead dropped to four. The Tigers answered with their own three-pointer and went on to win the battle at the net, bringing down twenty-five rebounds in the first half to the Aggies eleven, and going into the locker room with an comfortable18-point lead (53-35).
The Aggie men held the Tigers scoreless for the first three minutes of the second half and went on to score seven unanswered points to drop the Tiger lead to eight (71-63) with 8:38 left in the game. Back-to-back Aggie fouls put the Tigers at the line where they were near perfect, shooting 87% (20-23) for the game.
Tavien Rosemond ,
Jeremy Newton,
T. J. Farrell, and
Dawayne Matthews combined to score the final eleven points of the game for the Aggies and FHSU maintained their winning record. The final score from Kansas was 98-74 in favor of the Tigers.
Transfer guard Z. Jones had a great game shooting 5-8 from the field, 5-6 from the free-throw line, and was perfect from behind the arc scoring on all four of his three- point attempts; Jones led the Aggies in scoring (19) and assists (6). Junior
Jeremy Newton finished with 14 points and was perfect from the free-throw line and
Bill Lee led the team in rebounds totaling six. The Aggies' overall record is now 0-5.
Both teams will spend Thanksgiving week on the road with the women traveling to Portales, N.M. on Friday, Nov. 29 to play Eastern New Mexico at 2 p.m., while the men head to Colorado for a tournament hosted by Colorado Christian in Lakewood. The tournament begins on Friday with a match-up against Bethany College at 6 p.m. and wraps up on Saturday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. when the men play Colorado Christian. Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels to our Aggie basketball teams!
