Nothing seemed to go the Red’s way last night, as Cornell (0-3, 0-0 Ivy) dropped its third straight game to the St. Francis (Pa.) Red Flash (2-1, 0-0 NEC), 86-47. The Red came out strong in the first few minutes, although by the half, St. Francis held a dominating 47-27 lead. It all went downhill from there for Cornell, as the Red struggled to take quality shots and turned over the ball 21 times on the night.
“Right around the eight minute mark it seemed like we hit a wall,” explained head coach Dayna Smith. “Offensively we took very poor shots.”
St. Francis is an extremely tough squad that is a favorite to win its division year after year. The Red Flash had several players who gave Cornell trouble all night, including junior forward Beth Swink and guard Tonjee Ward. Swink scored 13 points, all in the first half. Ward led the team with 20 points.
“We wanted to try to stop Swink and Ward,” said Smith. “We were successful at stopping their forward, but their guard hit a lot of three pointers.”
So far this season, the Red has struggled because of its schedule. The Red’s schedule is far more difficult than it was last year, especially in this early part of the season.
“We’re playing big-time teams,” said Smith. “We knew going into the season that our schedule is a lot more difficult. We’ve got to use these [games] as learning experiences.”
If the Red wants to rebound from its current losing streak, the team will have substantial work to do on both the offensive and defensive ends. On offense, junior All-Ivy point guard Karen Force will need to get hot. Force only had one point last night. Defensively, the Red been on the wrong end of the offensive rebound statistics in all three games. The team’s assist-to-turnover ratio has also been poor.
“We’re not panicking by any means,” said Smith. “It’s a long season. We do have to learn from our mistakes.”
Archived article by Michael Pandolfini