The Knights play tough defense on a Voorhees player driving to the basket during their home opener on Saturday.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Londaisha Smith (1) goes up for a layup during St. Andrews’ loss to the Tigers. Smith had 14 points in the game.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
St. Andrews had chances in the game but “have to do some things better,” moving forward according to Head Coach Denise Hannah.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
The Knights will remain at home for a matchup with Spartanburg Methodist on Wednesday night.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights women’s basketball team was defeated by the Voorhees University Tigers by a score of 70-54 in their home opener on Saturday afternoon at Harris Court in Laurinburg. The Knights fall to 0-2 with the loss while Voorhees improves to 1-0 with the victory. Head Coach Denise Hannah was happy with the continued resolve her team showed but wasn’t pleased with the performance as a whole and knows there’s a lot to improve on.
“One of the things we talk about is adversity and how you’re going to play through it,” Hannah said. “We never give up because that’s not part of our identity but moving forward we have to do some things better so that we don’t find ourselves in these continuous predicaments where we have to fight to get back in the game when we should be ahead.”
The first quarter was a defensive struggle as there were only 25 total points scored between the two teams (13-12 Tigers after 10 minutes). Neither team even scored any points until nearly three minutes into the game, when Londaisha Smith made a layup to give St. Andrews a 2-0 advantage. It was a tightly contested quarter that saw six lead changes and the largest edge being a 12-8 Tigers lead, which they held with just under three minutes (2:56) left in the quarter.
The next 10 minutes had a little bit more scoring as Voorhees got 24 points while the Knights got 19. After trailing 15-12, St. Andrews went on a 13-5 charge that gave them a five-point advantage at 25-20 with 5:43 until halftime, their largest lead they would hold all game. The Tigers quickly responded, going on a 7-2 run of their own to tie the game at 27 with 3:19 left in the half. Voorhees would then ride that momentum into the break, outscoring St. Andrews 10-4 the rest of the way to be up 37-31 after the first 20 minutes of action.
The third quarter was similar to the first in being very tightly contested, just with a few more points as the Tigers scored 19 to the Knights’ 18. The Knights started a bit slow, allowing Voorhees to extend their lead up to 10 within the first minute and not scoring any points themselves until a pair of Ashley Starks free throws at the 6:38 mark. That would be the spark St. Andrews needed to get back in it, outscoring the Tigers 8-2 over the next minute and 20 seconds to make it a 43-41 game. They would be within two on multiple occasions (46-44 and 48-46) but couldn’t close the quarter with enough momentum as they still trailed by seven (56-49) after 30 minutes.
The final frame was simply one where the game got away from St. Andrews as they were outscored 14-5 and made some crucial mistakes down the stretch that would eliminate any hope of a comeback. The Tigers would hold an advantage as large as 16 during the period and cruise to the finish line by making more plays than the Knights in crunch time. Hannah emphasized the need to clean some of the things up that went wrong in the final frame moving forward.
“We had some missed defensive assignments and not communicating on the backside,” Hannah said. “We had too many turnovers, you’re not going to win any games with as many as we had, we have to clean that up and stick to what we’re doing in practice and carry it over into games.”
Jamicia Davis was the Knights’ leading scorer and rebounder in the game with 16 points and eight rebounds, respectively. Smith wasn’t far behind as she had 14 points and seven rebounds in the loss. AJ Price dished out a team leading four assists off the bench while Katie Moore brought some good defense with two blocks in just 10 minutes.
St. Andrews shot just 17-57 from the floor (29.8%) and committed 16 turnovers, which led to 13 Voorhees points. On a positive note, the Knights grabbed more rebounds (34-30) and had more second chance points (9-6) than the Tigers in the game. Even though Voorhees shot just 41.8% from the field, Hannah wasn’t overly thrilled with the team’s defensive showing and pointed to it as something that will be focused on in practice in addition to rebounding.
“One of our team identities is offensive rebounding and the other is supposed to be defense, we have to get better on defense and will be working on that over the next couple of days,” Hannah said. “One thing we talk about is crashing the boards especially when we know a team is not very good at boxing out.”
St. Andrews will have a couple of days off before staying at home to host Spartanburg Methodist on Wednesday night at 5:30 p.m. The Knights previously lost to them 65-63 in their season opener last Monday, Oct. 28. That defeat is not lost on Hannah but the focus for the Knights will be to continue improving one day at a time and stay true to themselves.
“We’ll look at some things we did well and some things we didn’t do well,” Hannah said. “We’ll make the adjustment on the scouting report and teach them in practice to be locked in and stay focused on your role.”