Eagles’ Losing Skid Continues in KC

By Jon Crossman

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – The Eagles received an icy welcome back to the court with back-to-back weekend losses in Kansas City, Missouri, both coming at the hands of opponents who also had only one season win prior to the games. In both matches the Eagles found themselves holding onto a lead only for it to be stripped away midgame by stone-cold shooting and a surge of energy from the opponent. The ladies came out of the weekend with a 1-5 record, with the losing streak now at five games after winning their season opener.

The first game against Barclay started off strong, with the Eagles striking first just eight seconds in. Barclay's strategy became fairly transparent off the jump: shoot often, and shoot well. The Bears took almost twice as many shots as Faith, making 5-of-29 three-pointers compared to the 0-of-5 three-point shooting from the Eagles. Rachel Kleczka carried a lot of the weight on defense for the Eagles, getting 4 monster blocks in the paint and pulling down 12 rebounds. Although the Eagles had a bigger presence down low with eight more points in the paint, the true dagger came from the 33 points that Barclay scored off turnovers.

Faith led by as many as nine points at half in their next game against Manhattan, with many of the early scoring opportunities coming from Makenna Laib (seven points). Momentum became a quick ally for the Thunder in a sudden comeback, where they went from a combined 19 points in the first half to averaging 21 points a quarter for the remainder of the game. The Eagles shooting dipped into a 20% average range during the Thunder onslaught, with only six points coming in the third quarter for the lowest scoring quarter of the game. Rachel Kleczka, Tina Harms, and Makenna Laib all shot perfect free throws in the final stage of the game to try and swing the momentum back to the Eagles, but by then the Thunder were too hot, winning the game 62-50.

The Eagles return home to try and end the losing skid, going up against Lincoln Christian University (1-8) at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 11.