Fort Lewis College scored nearly half of its points in the first quarter. A scoreless drought of 5 minutes, 30 seconds to end the first quarter and begin the second followed by another stretch of 3:28 without a point put the Skyhawks in a 27-22 hole at halftime against the Regis Rangers.
Still, the FLC women’s basketball team had the game tied 30-30 with five minutes to play in the third quarter. Regis outscored the Skyhawks 19-9 the rest of the way to secure a 49-39 victory.
It was the second consecutive poor offensive night for FLC, as the Skyhawks followed the seven-point second quarter with only six in the fourth.
“I wish I had answer for that,” FLC head coach Jason Flores said of the poor shooting. “Obviously, turnovers have been deflating over the last couple of nights. Almost 10 more than our average. The flip side of that is our assists. Having five assists is about 10 under our average. It’s a bad trend right now. You can’t win games scoring 39 points. We gotta figure that out.”
FLC (9-14, 5-12 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) allowed Regis to collect 12 offensive rebounds in the first half. The Rangers (12-10, 8-9 RMAC) should have led by more but could only turn those second-chance opportunities into three points. FLC didn’t allow an offensive rebound to Regis in the third quarter but gave up three more in the fourth. Regis still couldn’t make the most of it with only four second-chance points in the game off 15 offensive rebounds.
It was points off turnovers that Regis did utilize. FLC committed 21 turnovers and had only five assists the entire game. Regis scored 16 points off the Skyhawks’ giveaways.
Kayla Herrera scored a game-high 15 points for FLC. She also had seven rebounds but turned it over seven times. Jordan Carter added seven points, while Alyssa Yocky was held to three points but grabbed 13 rebounds.
Regis shot 10-of-31 from 3-point territory to FLC’s 2-of-16. Jacob led the team with 13 points to go with nine rebounds. Walters and Robinson finished with 10 each.
The Skyhawks will stay home next weekend to host Westminster College, the second-best team in the RMAC standings, before a Saturday home game against Dixie State.
With five games left to play, the Skyhawks are out of the RMAC tournament picture and will look to end with some positives to go into the offseason with.
Yocky, a senior, will try to help the team move forward in her last few games in an FLC jersey.
“Just play together, get some wins at the end and show and play how I know we could have played the entire season,” Yocky said. “Finish out the season strong, just showing them that’s the potential we have the next few years. We have talent, we just need to play together and offensively work on how we can play as a team, play off each other. Win some games and do what we can to make a statement the last couple games.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
