Yellow Jackets Fall to Franklin and Hanover
(Defiance, Ohio) The Defiance College Women’s Basketball team fell to the Franklin Grizzlies on Saturday, December 9th in the Karl H. Weaner Center, 73-61. Starting off slow put them in a hole for the rest of the game.
As the Grizzlies took an early lead in the first half, 6-0, the Yellow Jackets were down early. Defiance slowly came back to put the score within 2, 10-8, with 4:14 left in the first quarter. The Franklin Grizzly offense kept pushing and went on another run, this time 8-4. This brought the score to 18-12, Grizzlies ahead at the .
Franklin came out on fire after the first quarter quickly picking up an even bigger lead 29-16 with 6:16 left on the clock in the second period. A few minutes later, the Yellow Jackets looked to cut the lead down when they brought it to 31-19. A Franklin turnover and a recover by Rogers brought the game to 35-21. The teams went into the locker room for halftime with a score of 35-21, Franklin up.
The Grizzlies came out of the locker room with hot shooting as they went on yet another run in the third quarter before Rogers sank a deep shot to put an end to it. The Yellow Jackets were then within 14 points with the score being 41-27 with 8:27 left in the third. Back to back jumpers from Franklin kept them in the lead a good amount as the Defiance College Women struggled to get an offense going. The third quarter ended with a score of 56-41.
The Yellow Jackets went off in the fourth quarter with an 8-0 run over a span of 2 minutes to cut the score within 8 points, 59-51 with 7:06 left in the game! The Grizzlies went off on one more run to end the game with a score of 73-61.
Sam Ervin said, following the game, “We struggled to take care of the ball, we had 21 turnovers. We beat ourselves.”
Lauren Rogers, Whitney Schalk, and Shelby Stamm all ended with double figures while Sam Ervin led both teams in rebounds with 9. Whitney Schalk also had 4 assists.
The Defiance College Yellow Jackets dropped a game in HCAC play to Hanover College on Saturday. The final score was 92-62.
Hanover took the lead right out of the gates starting off 10-4 in the first two minutes of the contest. Defiance tried to get it together late in the first quarter with a 3 point bucket by Ervin, but the Panther defense held the Yellow Jackets to score no more points in the quarter, heading into the second with a score of 19-7.
Both teams had a tough time finding the basket in the beginning of the second quarter but back to back Yellow Jacket buckets cut the lead to 21-13. The Panthers, going on another run, set the score to 40-22 at the half.
Hanover defense came out ready to go in the third quarter as they held the Yellow Jackets with no score for the first 4 minutes before Rogers got a jumper in and the score was then 52-24 with 6:34 left in the third. Hanover went off again to extend the lead 70-37 as time expired on the clock.
The Yellow Jacket offense showed sign of being alive in the beginning of the fourth quarter with a few needed buckets. The Panthers held them off and as the clock ran down to 0, they captured the win 92-62.
Leading for Defiance is Sam Ervin with 19 points and 7 rebounds, Lauren Rogers with 12 points, and Mekai White with 11 points. Whitney Schalk also ended the game with 5 assists.
Mekai White said for a piece of advice, “Don’t play against yourselves, play against your opponent.”
Written by Jessica Davis
