Beaver Falls, PA—On Tuesday evening the Geneva College women's basketball team opened the home portion of its schedule by welcoming Washington & Jefferson to Metheny Fieldhouse. After a strong first quarter, Geneva could not stay with the highly regarded Presidents, and Geneva dropped the contest, 82-48. Geneva fell to 1-2 overall, 0-1 in the Presidents' Athletic Conference, while W&J improved to 3-0 overall, 1-0 in the PAC.
Geneva started well against the team picked second in the preseason PAC polls, hanging with W&J through the 1st quarter, and they found themselves trailing just 18-16 at the end of the quarter. An Amanda Knecht layup to start the 2nd quarter pulled Geneva even, but from there it was all W&J. The Presidents responded with a 22-3 run, and Geneva could never recover as they headed into the halftime break in a 44-24 hole.
Geneva played more competitively in the second half, but by then the damage had already been done, and W&J closed out the game with an 82-48 victory.
"I thought we did some really good things in that 1st quarter," Head Coach Lori Wynn commented. "But that second period, we just lost our focus. I was encouraged, though, by the play of our freshmen. W&J is a talented and veteran team, and we played five freshmen for most of the 4th quarter, and they played well. That's something to build on looking ahead to the next game."
W&J clearly put much of its defensive focus on stopping junior guard Callie Ford, who came in averaging 22 points per game, and it proved effective. Ford could never get going offensively, finishing with 8 points, which tied senior guard Lydia Songer for high scorer for Geneva. Freshman forward Lauren Tipton added 6 points and 7 rebounds as well.
The Golden Tornadoes will take a couple of days off for the Thanksgiving break and then return to action this Saturday when they host Pitt-Greensburg on Saturday at 2 p.m.
