The Mayville State Women's Basketball team traveled south over the weekend to take on two teams down in Florida. Their first stop was at Babson Park to take on Webber International University, facing the Warriors this Saturday afternoon. After a tight first half, the Comets had to battle a series of scoring droughts to stay in the game and were unable to edge out ahead in the end to the Warriors in the 59-57 loss.
The Comets started out with a strong effort, taking an 8-0 lead and pushing it to a 12-2 start after 5 points each from Claire Blascziek and Kylee Heurung helped spark the early run. Both of them would end the first quarter with 8 each and help give MSU a 22-13 lead. Things in the second quarter were pretty dry for the Comets, as the team was only able to score two 3-pointers, one from Blascziek at the 8:07 mark and one from Joelle Ertl with 5:15 to play in the first half. The drought allowed Webber to climb back into it and narrow down the Comet lead to 2, making it 28 to 26 at the end of the half.
The second half began with another small dry spell from the Comets that allowed the Warriors to tie it up and then take the lead at 30-28. Joelle Ertl was able to stop the scoring drought with 2 free throws to tie things up again. A layup from Taylor Shamp would give the Comets the lead at 5:32 to go, but MSU was unable to score for over two and half minutes, which allowed Webber to gain a slight edge again. Taylor Shamp had two more field goals for the Comets as the quarter was winding down, bringing them into a 2 point deficit with 1:23 remaining in the third quarter. A six point run by the Warriors gave them an 8 point advantage though as both teams entered the final 10 minutes of action.
Finding themselves down by 10 early in the fourth quarter, two straight three's from Claire Blascziek and a bucket from Taylor Shamp brought them within two. Another three from Blascziek would keep the Comets in it to make it 52-51, Webber leading the game. The Warriors went on a 5-0 run to take a six point advantage with just a few minutes to play. The Comets were able to hold the Warriors for over two minutes and had a nice six point run of their own to counter-attack Webber, as Blascziek scored, Ertl scored and Cyan Hale's layup with 51 seconds to go tied up the game at 57 all.
It was looking to go into overtime until a foul by the Comets with 1 second remaining put the Warriors' Emmarie Carmen on the line for two free throws. She nailed both of them, with the Comets having one more hope for a long distance three to go for the win. The last second attempt by Kylee Heurung did not go, leaving the Comets losing a heartbreaker, 59 to 57 to Webber International.
Leading for the Comets with a game-high effort was Claire Blascziek with 20 points, 18 of them off of three-pointers as she was 6-13 in the game from long range. Joelle Ertl had 11, while Taylor Shamp scored 8. Kylee Heurung had a game-high of 13 rebounds, and another game-high of 5 assists. Ertl also had 4 steals for a game-high in that category as well.
A key stat in the game was points off of turnovers. The Comets turned it over 17 times and that allowed Webber to gain 22 points. They did win the battle of the boards with 44 to Webber's 39.
The Comets now move to 2-4 overall, and finish out their Florida road trip against Warner University in Lake Wales, Florida on Monday evening at 6pm Central.
