While many of us were spending the Thanksgiving break relaxing and consuming more food than any other week of the year, the Colorado College women’s basketball team was hosting the 2015 Rocky Mountain Thanksgiving Classic in Reid Arena. The dedication of working through the holiday break proved fruitful for the Tigers.
On Friday, Nov. 27, the women’s team claimed their first victory of the season against Lewis & Clark College. For a while, Lewis & Clark kept pace with the Tigers, but by the 5:50 mark, CC was leading 14-7. CC continued to maintain the lead but in the last four minutes, but Lewis & Clark mounted a late run to pull within six of the Tigers at the end of the first quarter.
In the second period, Lewis & Clark continued to chip away at CC’s lead, ultimately claiming a two-point lead of their own at the five minute mark. In the next couple minutes, they increased that lead to 7. But CC quickly came back, removing the deficit. At the 01:16 mark, CC reclaimed the lead, 40-39, with a jumper by Davis. A pair of successful free throws by Lewis & Clark sent the game into halftime with CC down by one point.
The Tigers unleashed a barrage of scoring in the third quarter to put them up for good. Three layups in a row by the Tigers, two by Davis and then one by junior forward Korbyn Ukasick, gave CC a 48-43 lead. CC ended the third quarter on top 64-52.
Lewis & Clark kept fighting until the last minute and whittled down CC’s 18 point lead to 6 at one point. But ultimately, they couldn’t come back from CC’s earlier dominance. The Tigers managed to finish off Lewis and Clark and claim a win by a final score of 80-74.
“We played well from the start to finish and really got the whole team involved,” said head coach Liz Doran. “We’ve made small steps forward with each game and each practice and it was kind of the culmination of all our hard work. We had kids step up and make plays. And to see some of our players to have the confidence to do that in a big game was nice.”
The Tigers faced a difficult opponent on Saturday: North Central College. NCC set an intense pace early on, scoring only a few seconds into the first period. They increased their lead with a three-pointer a minute later. CC got on the board with a layup by Torbet, assisted by Davis. Five more Tigers stepped up, each scoring once on NCC throughout the period. But NCC steadily increased their lead, ending the period with a 32-12 lead.
“North Central runs the Grinnell men’s system,” said Doran. “It’s just nothing we’ve ever seen before. It’s almost not even real basketball…It was so different from anyone that we had played; it caught us off-guard.”
The Tigers trailed NCC 68-36 heading after two quarters of constant pressure from the Cardinals.
The third period continued similar to the first two. By the end, NCC had broken into three digits, 100-53. In the fourth period, the Tigers scored 17 points and held NCC to just 23 points, their lowest scoring period of the game. The game ended 123-70.
“We were all tired from [Lewis & Clark] and then had to immediately turn around and play that type of game which was very fast-paced,” said Ukasick.
Despite the loss, the game still featured a high point for the Tigers. Davis, who scored a team-high 17 points, became the 12th person in the history of Colorado College women’s basketball to record 1,000 or more career points. Davis also led the team with 8 rebounds. She is just 29 shy of reaching 500.
“It feels great to accomplish this personal goal with the help of my teammates. Obviously, I couldn’t have done it without their help. I feel lucky to be apart of such a great group of girls. Their support and strength were what made this possible for me,” said Davis.
This Friday, the Tigers go on their first big road trip of the season to play UC Santa Cruz.