Box Score
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The William Woods University women's basketball team found itself down 16-0 before scoring its first basket on Thursday night, as they were unable to recover from the slow start and suffered a 95-56 American Midwest Conference road loss at No. 15 Columbia College.
William Woods (13-7; 6-6 AMC) failed to hit its first nine shots of the game en route to a 19.4 shooting percentage performance in the first half. Before the Owls were able to break through in the scoring column, Columbia College (15-5; 11-1 AMC) had already mounted a 16-point advantage that they would never relinquish and collected the season sweep over William Woods.
For WWU, it was the second consecutive game that they struggled to hit shots in the opening frame, but were still able to best the 18.2 percent in the first half effort in last Saturday's loss to No. 2 Freed-Hardeman. The loss also drops the Owls back to .500 in conference play, as they are an even 6-6 after their first 12 AMC contest.
Destani Stensrud was one of two Owls in double-digits on Thursdays by posting a team-best 13 points. For the second straight game WWU failed to hit the 60-point plateau, as they were averaging 72.9 points per contest coming into the Thursday's affair. Â Blake French was the other Owl in double-figures on the night by tailing 10 points.
For Columbia College, they were led by a pair of 20-point performances from newcomer Janairrika Bland (21 points) and two-time AMC Player of the Year Heather English (20 points).
Columbia opened up the game on a 16-0 run, and it wouldn't be until the 15:52 mark of the first half that William Woods got its first points of the game with a Kennedy Volkart basket.
Tierney Seifert's three-pointer at 14:44 gave the Cougars its first 20-point lead of the game at 22-2. CC built its lead to 24 points on its next possession with a pair of Kayla Washington free throw and forced WWU to take a timeout.
Out of the break, William Woods responded with a 9-0 run to cut its deficit to 24-11. The Owls were able to cut Columbia's first half lead to 13 points several times in the first half, but couldn't quite get over the hump, as the Cougars kept the Owls at bay for the remainder of the half.
Columbia pushed its lead back to 19 points late in the frame, and an Ashley Fisher three-point with 41 seconds left gave her team a 45-25 advantage that they would take into halftime.
William Woods cut the lead to 17 points early in the second half, but an English three-pointer quickly gave the Cougars its 20-point advantage back.
The No. 15-ranked team in the NAIA continued to expand its lead through the remainder of the half, and took a game-high 39 point lead with eight seconds remaining in the game before handing William Woods the 95-56 defeat.
The Owls will look to end their two-game losing skid on Saturday afternoon, as they entertain Williams Baptist College for a 2 p.m. contest at Anderson Arena. WWU will be aiming for the season sweep of the Lady Eagles on Saturday, as they defeated WBC 56-42 in Walnut Ridge, Ark., back on Jan. 7.
Check back with wwuowls.com for a full preview and recap of this and every game during the 2013-14 season.
