The Lady Bruins were on the road on Friday night as they faced the Pensacola Christian College Eagles. The two teams met in January with the Bruins capturing a 65-63 win at the Davis Field House. The Eagles are 12-12 on the season and have been playing excellent basketball of late, winning four of their last five games. The Bruins would again be without star forward Kourtney Hoefler, who was sidelined by an ankle injury. The stands were packed for senior night, and the Eagle faithful were looking for their ladies to win their third straight game.
From the opening tip, the two teams went back and forth attempting to establish momentum. The Bruins had changed a few things up on the offensive end as Kendra Jeffcott was forced to play a lot on the block with Kourtney Hoefler out. "We knew not having Kourtney was going to leave a hole for us," Coach LeViere said. "But we knew we still needed to compete and put out our best effort." The Bruins battled with the Eagles as Trisha Irving captained the offense for points. The Eagles slowly built a first half lead while shooting 41% from three point range. The Bruins battled back to tie the game, and at the half, the score was 35-35.
"We had good looks, we just didn't knock them down," Coach LeViere said. "You have to give credit to PCC though, they shot very well."
As the second half began, the Bruins came out on fire as Kim Spiecker and Kendra Jeffcott scored at will to give the Bruins an 8 point lead. The team shot 35% from the floor, but showed great poise in executing their offensive sets. As the game wore on, the Eagles slowly began to chip away at the Bruin lead and eventually took a lead of their own. With less than a minute to play, the Bruins battled back and tied the game after a couple clutch baskets from Kim Spiecker. Both teams had several open looks for the win, but as the buzzer sounded, the game was tied 64-64.
In overtime, the Eagles locked down on Kendra Jeffcott making it tough for her to get open shots. The Eagles countered with clutch shooting down the stretch to build a lead. The Bruins couldn't battle their way back into the game and the final buzzer gave the Eagles a 76-71 win.
"I was proud of our effort tonight," Coach LeViere said. "They won the game tonight, we didn't lose the game. They hit shots when they needed to, but we just couldn't get baskets when it mattered most."
The Bruins outrebounded the Eagles 51-29 despite playing without leading rebounder Kourtney Hoefler. Kendra Jeffcott led the way for the Bruins with 19 points and 21 rebounds. Trisha Irving had 12 points and 8 assists while Kim Spiecker chipped in 14 points and 8 rebounds. With the loss, the Bruins finish the regular season at 10-15. Coach LeViere has seen tremendous growth throughout this inaugural season from his team. "The girls came together so well this season," LeViere said. "We turned the corner near the end of first semester and we really became a college basketball team that could compete every night." The team will look to regroup before heading to the NCCAA D1 South Regional Tournament in early March.
