Classic wins elude Red Devil women

Allen County Community College’s women struggled in front of the home crowd over the weekend. The Red Devils were not able to win one of their two games in the ACCC Citizens Bank Classic.
“Our decision making is not very good right now,” said Marcus Hicks, ACCC women’s basketball head coach. “Defense and rebounding is our Achilles heel right now.”
The Red Devils opened Classic play Friday night with an 89-50 loss to Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa. NOC pushed out to a 40-23 halftime lead.
On Saturday, the Red Devils took on Butler Community Colleges’ Grizzlies. The Grizzlies held a 31-24 lead on the Red Devils at halftime.
“We can’t win games when we send opponents to the line 41 times. Butler had 27 offensive rebounds and 21 points off of turnovers. You can’t win games giving that up,” Hicks said.
Butler cashed in 25 of 41 free throw attempts Saturday. It outscored Allen County 38-30 in the second half for a 69-54 win.
Allen County shot 31 percent, 16 of 52, from the field in Saturday’s contest. The Red Devils tossed in 17 of 24 free throw attempts.
The big factor was rebounding against Butler. The Grizzlies swept the glass for 62 rebounds to the Red Devils’ 30 rebounds.
“We’re giving up too many transition points and some of that is coming off defensive rebounding. We’re not getting in and getting strong rebounding positions at either end of the court,” Hicks said.
In Friday’s game with Northern Oklahoma, the Red Devils had a very slow start offensively. They never could catch up.
Allen County shot just 30 percent, 18 of 60, from the field and hit 9 of 19 free throw tries. NOC fired in 35 of 82 from the field for 43 percent and downed 12 of 21 free throw attempts.
Danielle Best hit four three-point field goals to lead ACCC with 12 points. Rackell Goldson had 11 points and three steals. Jazmynn Johnson pulled 11 of ACCC’s 47 rebounds.
Queona Walker dished out nine assists. But the Red Devils committed 30 turnovers.
NOC got 19 points from Lillian Prince and 16 more from Megan Jones. Carmella Thompson tossed in 13. NOC had 20 steals in the game.
“We need to find some continuity in our game,” Hicks said. “We have to play defense without fouling people. We work on defense in practices but it’s just not translating to game situation.”
Against Butler, the Red Devils were down 5-0 to start the game but came back led by Rackell Goldson and Aeriss McNeese. It was 12-11 with 13:46 left in the first half.
Walker hit back-to-back threes to pull the Red Devils within  one,  24-23, at the 3:43 mark.  Butler was up 31-24 at halftime.
Butler opened the second half with an eight-point run. Two free throws by Best broke the run and made it 41-26 at the 15:38 mark.
The Red Devils were down 58-38 with just under seven minutes to play. They batted back to 63-49 and had a chance to get within 12 with over three minutes left but missed two shots.
“We’re just not making good decisions with the basketball at critical times in games. We just have to keep working at it,” Hicks said.
 Goldson had 19 points, 10 rebounds and two steals for the Red Devils. Walker had 17 points, two steals and three assists. McNeese added 11 points.
Butler got 18 points from Abby Fawcett. Tierra Andrews and Aril Miller each had 10 points.
Allen County (2-4) hosts Dodge City Tuesday. It’s a 6 p.m. tipoff.
Allen County (23-27—50) (FG/3-pt): Shaffer 1-0-2-2, Walker 0-1-3-1, Reynolds 0-0-1-0, Wolf 1-1-2-3, Swick 3-0-1-6, Goldson 2/1-4-0-11, Best 0/4-0-1-12, McNeese 3-1-3-7, Johnson 3-2-1-18. TOTALS: 13/5-9-14-50.
NOC-Tonkawa (40-49—89) (FG/3-pt): Smith 1-0-1-2, Treadaway 2-0-0-4, Pierce 0-0-1-0, D. Jones 0/2-0-1-6, Prince 8-3-2-19, Hall 1-0-0-2, Banks 1-0-1-2, M. Jones 5/2-0-0-16, Surratt 0/1-2-0-5, Mooer 2-1-1-5, Miller 0-3-0-3, Thompson 3/2-1-2-13, Kirk 4-0-2-8, Hearon 1-0-2-2, Turner 0-2-0-2. TOTALS: 28/7-12-13-89.
Allen County (24-30—54) (FG/3-pt): Shaffer 0-1-1-1, Walker 2/3-4-4-17, Wolf 0-0-2-0, Swick 1-0-4-2, Goldson 2/2-9-3-19, Best 1-2-2-4, McNeese 5-1-4-11, Johnson 0-0-3-0, Nisbett 0-0-4-0. TOTALS: 11/5-17-27-54.
Butler (31-28—69) (FG/3-pt): Key 0-2-1-2, Louis 0-0-2-0, Franklin 3-0-3-6, Sims 2-3-0-7, Egwuagu 2-1-3-5, Fawcett 2/2-8-3-18, Dennis 0-0-2-0, Andrews 3-4-4-10, Couey 1-2-0-4, Wilson 0-1-0-1, O’Neal 0-0-1-0, Miller 3-4-2-10, Elliot-Salas 3-0-4-6. TOTALS: 19/2-25-25-69.