The women’s basketball team continued their up and down season by losing to Tulane, but picked up a win against Southern Methodist at home over the weekend.
In the 70–65 loss to Tulane, junior Liesl Spoerl recorded her first career double-double with 14 points and 19 rebounds — the most rebounds for the Golden Hurricane since Denise Lewis had 20 in 2010. Freshman Shug Dickson, the American Athletic Conference Freshman of the week, also put up double digit points (11). Erika Wakefield put up 10 and had a team-high four assists in the loss.
Tulane started the game with a 8–0 run, putting the Golden Hurricane behind to start the game, which has been a consistent trend for Tulsa so far this season. They came back in the second quarter to make it a one-point game at the half, but Tulane pulled ahead in the latter part of the game thanks to their 19 points from the free-throw line, while Tulsa only had nine.
Head coach Matilda Mossman talked about the need for the Golden Hurricane to draw more fouls. “It boils down to the free throw line. We had nine points at the free throw line and they get 19, but we lose by five points and they have 10 more points at the line. We have to attack and draw fouls so we have to do a better job of getting to the free throw line.”
Tulsa couldn’t get past the Green Wave in the final frame and lost by five to Tulane.
The Golden Hurricane returned home over the weekend to take on the Southern Methodist Mustangs, bringing home a 66–59 win, their third conference win.
Dickson led the way for the Golden Hurricane with her fourth 20+ point game in the last three weeks.
Mossman talked about the strength of the players in her post-game press conference.
“Shug Dickson was solid today. But I thought we had a lot of kids that were really solid today — Kendrian Elliott, Liesl Spoerl, Crystal Polk and Jessica Pongonis really did a great job on their bigs inside. Our kids played solid, and the big thing was that we had a lead at halftime and we didn’t give up that lead.”
Tulsa jumped out to an early lead in this game, outscoring the Mustangs 20–9 in the first quarter, and took a 12-point lead into halftime. Though they had a slow start to the second half with only nine points in the third quarter, they kept pace in the fourth quarter to claim the seven-point win.
Tulsa won on the strength of their three-pointers — scoring nine to SMU’s three, but the rebounds helped them as well. The Golden Hurricane out-rebounded the Mustangs 50–49, which is significant because the Mustangs are a much taller team than the Golden Hurricane.
The loss and win put the Golden Hurricane’s overall record at 7–14. Their next game is against East Carolina on Tuesday.