Sometimes, it’s not about how you fall, it’s about how you get back up. After Wright State’s loss against Bellarmine, which saw them lose a 21-point lead by the midpoint of the fourth quarter, the green and gold were hoping to bounce back at home against Ohio. In their match against Bellarmine, turnovers were the Raiders’ undoing with half of the 23 turnovers committed coming in the final 13 minutes of the contest.
Ohio (1-3) started off the season with some rough results with other squads. Picked 6th in the MAC’s preseason poll, they took hard losses against Georgia Southern, Ohio State, and mutual opponent Bellarmine, where the Bobcats took a 82-50 loss. Their lone win against George Washington saw them escape in a low scoring effort all around, 52-40. This game was the Raiders and Bobcats first meeting in 14 years – the last time around the Raiders took the contest and currently own a 9-4 series lead.
Once the bell rang, the Raiders got right to work putting together an 8-0 lead from some stellar play from Amaya Staton, who worked to pull in four offensive rebounds for some second chance points and made some trips to the line in doing so. The Bobcats were able to claw back from that deficit with some three point shooting overtop of the Raiders defense, but the Raiders went on another scoring run late in the second quarter to put them up 37-22 at halftime.
From there, the Raiders maintained their lead with scoring from across the roster, including 3-8 three pointers from Rylee Sagester and the return of Lauren Scott, who went 2-8 in the return from her knee injury. During the fourth quarter, the Raiders started to show a repeat of the turnover problem from the Bellarmine game, but Coach Hoffman didn’t let it get out of control and after some timeouts to reset and regroup, the Raiders finished off the Bobcats 68-57.
“The more that they get these opportunities, the more they’ll be comfortable,” Hoffman had to say about the even scoring effort by the Raiders.
Claire Henson and Rylee Sagester ended the night with 12 and 11 PTs a piece after finding some success at the arc. Amaya Staton led the squad with 11 PTs and 11 RBs, sealing her third straight double-double for Wright State.
“She is absolute force in there, whether it’s from her making a move or her grabbing a board and then making free throws,” Hoffman remarked about Staton’s performance. “Defensively, she can cover a lot for us and is always there as a rim protector. She’s playing at a high level right now and I’m really proud of her.”
For Ohio, Kennedi Watkins stole the day for the Bobcats, coming off the bench from a presumed injury similarly to Scott and putting up 20 PTs and 10 RBs for a double-double of her own. Monica Williams scored 18 points as well off of 6-15 shooting.
Wright State wraps up November non-conference play with a tune-up on Tuesday against University of Findlay, a Division 2 school from the Toledo area. After that, we enter the true test – conference play. Wright State will start December ball by taking the trip up to Michigan to face Detroit Mercy and Oakland on December 4th and 6th respectively, followed by a third matchup a little later at home against Cleveland State on December 16th.
