Chippewa Women Fall At Home To Ball State

Wednesday, February 3

Mount Pleasant, Mich.

5 P.M.

Central Michigan University

10-6,8-4MAC

Ball State

9-5,7-3MAC

Ball St.

Central Mich.

Photo by: Jack Reeber '23,M'25 - @jackreeber.raw

2/3/2021 8:18:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery II Photo Gallery

By: Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – The Central Michigan women's basketball team was outscored, 19-13, in the fourth quarter on Wednesday in falling to Ball State, 69-66, in a Mid-American Conference game at McGuirk Arena.

The loss ended a three-game win streak as the Chippewas slipped to 10-6, 8-4 MAC. It was the fifth-consecutive win for Ball State, 9-5, 7-3.

"I am disappointed that this is our third MAC loss at home," CMU coach Heather Oesterle said. "This is usually where we're at our best. I know there's no fans, but we're better than we played today. We're better than this. We're practicing a lot better than we showed today."

The Chippewas go on the road for their next two games, first to Western Michigan on Saturday, Feb. 6, and then to Miami (Ohio) on Wednesday, Feb. 10. The Broncos and RedHawks are 11^th and 12^th, respectively, in the MAC standings.

"I don't think we're going to have any problem getting fired up to play Western," said Oesterle, whose team's three-game win streak was preceded by an uncharacteristic three-game losing streak. "Obviously another in-state school. To be honest, even when we lost (three) games, the morale never went down; it was like, ok, we've got to figure this out and we've got to move forward.

"The message is there's still a lot of season left and there's still some stuff we've got to clean up and we'll figure it out."

How It Happened
The Chippewas led by 12, 53-41, with under 4 minutes remaining in the third quarter and appeared as if they were going to pull away.

But the Cardinals scored the final seven points of the third quarter and outscored the Chippewas 8-3 over the first four minutes of the fourth quarter to go in front 58-55. It was their first lead since the first quarter.

It remained a one- or two-possession game and three times the Chippewas drew to within a point, but they could never again tie it or regain the lead.

Two Sydney Freeman free throws with 16 seconds remaining made it 69-66 and the Chippewas missed two 3-point attempts in the final 5 seconds.

The Chippewas made just 10 of their 29 second-half field goal attempts and were just 2-for-12 from 3-point range in the final 20 minutes.

Leaders
Molly Davis scored 24 points and Micaela Kelly added 20 to lead the Chippewas. No other CMU player scored in double figures.

"That's not going to win us games," Oesterle said. "We have to have more balanced scoring. We've got to get something going in the post, we have to get something from our bench. I'm pretty disappointed after this one because we've been having some good practices and we're getting back to our style of basketball which is getting it inside-outside and I thought we got away from that tonight."

Keys
Oshlynn Brown, a 6-foot-1 senior and one of the MAC's top players, scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Cardinals. It was Brown's seventh double-double in the 10 games she has played this season.

Brown scored 16 of her points in the second half, when the Chippewas played without forward Kyra Bussell, who left the game with an injury late in the first half. CMU's other starting post player, Jahari Smith, battled second-half foul trouble and fouled out with under three minutes remaining.

That limited Oesterle's options as the Chippewas went with a five-guard lineup at times and their tallest player on the floor was 5-10 sophomore Anika Weekes.

"It didn't kill us, but it isn't something that we usually like to play with, that kind of guard lineup," Oesterle said. "With them having Oshlynn Brown, it's a tough matchup for us."