VALPARAISO — The offense put up enough points for Valparaiso University’s women’s basketball team to win.
It just didn’t chomp down enough Jolly Ranchers to stay energetic enough on the defensive end to stop Cleveland State.
Imani Gordon, Cori Coleman and Alexis Eckles combined for 55 points in the Vikings’ sweep over the Crusaders, 77-70, Wednesday night at the Athletics-Recreation Center in Horizon League action.
Valpo (6-20, 2-11) trailed 40-33 at halftime but came out the gates on a tear outscoring CSU 19-12 thanks to some energy-packed Jolly Ranchers provided by VU coach Tracey Dorow at halftime.
Freshman Jasmyn Walker, who finished with 11 points and a team-high 13 rebounds, said the team played its best basketball during that nine-minute stretch.
“We came out with fire and we knew we were down eight and we knew what we had to do,” Walker said. “But I feel with every game, we hit a wall and there’s no way to get through it; we need someone to step it up and keep pushing. Several times we lacked that.”
Walker was describing the lull her team hit once VU tied the score at 52 with 11:10 to go.
It seemed the sugar shock wore off as Cleveland State (16-10, 8-5) turned it around scoring 15 of the game’s next 19 points to take a 67-56 lead with 7:29 remaining in the game.
VU cut it down to five points with 37 seconds left but could never quite take advantage of its offensive possessions.
“It comes down to the fact that they made the big plays and we didn’t,” Dorow said. “We felt we were three possessions away.
“I thought our patience was good. We got the ball to the paint and then we had a few turnovers.”
The Crusaders only turned the ball over 11 times on Wednesday but that led to 18 Vikings’ points. VU only had two points off CSU turnovers.
That’s a 16-point swing.
“I felt like it was going to be a game of runs no matter what,” Dorow said. “We just gave them two huge runs; we were up eight in the first half and got down 11.
“Then we did a great job starting off (the second half) but they erased that real quickly.
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“We just didn’t take pride in our defense at times and they took advantage of that.”
Senior Sharon Karungi led VU with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Jessica Carr contributed 11 points and three assists. Abby Dean and Annemarie Hamlet each knocked down 10 points.
Ryan Haskell is a freelance writer.