It was approximately 592 hours between the final buzzer of the Marshalltown Community College Women's Basketball Team's 44-70 loss at the hands of Iowa Lakes Community College and the opening tip of Saturday's 1 PM matchup with Kirkwood Community College. That's 24 days and 16 hours of traveling to spend time with family. 24 days and 16 hours of holiday meals. 24 days and 16 hours without meaningful competitive basketball.
A lot of rust can accumulate over 592 hours. That was evident with the play of the Tigers on January, 5 when they opened up the second half of the season at home against NJCAA DII #11 ranked Kirkwood Community College. It was a long seven minutes and eleven seconds of gameplay before the Tigers were able to get on the scoreboard with a Laurin Lyons free throw. By this point, Kirkwood led 21-1 and would close out the first quarter with a dominant 32-1 lead.
By the start of the second quarter, the Eagles were no longer running their renowned trapping press that they began the contest in. While a staple of the Kirkwood program, the Tigers proved well prepared for the press and had little difficulty breaking it. However, they struggled to score the basketball once they had broken the press. Those offensive struggles continued in the second quarter as the Tigers managed just four points on back-to-back field goals by sophomore Anna Jaumandreu. At halftime, the Eagles led 51-5.
Through 20 minutes of play, the Tigers had shot 0-20 from three-point range while going 2-29 from the field to shoot an abysmal 6.9% in the first half. Meanwhile, the Eagles were shooting 40% from distance and 60% on the day. The Eagles did much of their damage inside as they outscored the Tigers 26-2 in the paint, outrebounded the Tigers 24-10, and recorded four blocks compared to zero for the home team.
Entering the third quarter down by 46, the Tigers did not give up. Instead, they continued to fight and compete. Finally, their shots started to fall. The Tigers actually outshot the Eagles both from deep and in overall field goal percentage in the third quarter. The sharp-shooting Tigers scored 21 points in the third quarter, but still trailed 73-26 entering the final frame.
The final ten minutes of the contest played out uneventfully. At the final buzzer, the Eagles knocked off the Tigers 89-33. Dana Stokes and Anna Jaumandreu led the Tigers with seven points apiece on the afternoon. Meanwhile, the Eagles had eight players record seven or more points in the contest.
The Tigers won't have 592 hours between contests this time as they're back at home in the Student Activity Center on Thursday, January 10 to take on Luther College JV at 6 PM.
