John Brown University’s Lady Eagles will be traveling to Texas this Thursday to take on Lubbock Christian which is currently ranked second in the Sooner Athletic Conference. The Lady Eagles will be facing one of its most formidable opponents. With an 18-1 season record and a 5-1 conference record, Lubbock Christian ranks five spots higher than JBU.
“I think we’re playing well,” said Head Coach Jeff Soderquist. “Christmas break was good; we were a little beat up and I think we’ve gotten healed up and … we’re playing better.” With a current season record of 7-11 and a conference record of 2-4, the Lady Eagles need to bring a strong performance in order to bring down the Texas giants on Thursday. The Eagles suffered a double loss this week making the upcoming game against Lubbock Christian much more important.
This past week the lady Eagles fell to at Oklahoma Baptist and at home to Mid-America Christian.
Last Thursday, the Lady Eagles traveled to Oklahoma coming off of a close home defeat to Rogers State. At the end of the first half, the Eagles had put up 23 points against OBU, while conceding 31. While JBU had better three point (25%) and free throw percentage (71.4), they turned the ball over 20 times, and at the end of the night suffered a 56-46 loss. While the Eagles did not get the result they wanted, senior Anna Perish ended the night with ten points, six of which came from free throws; she also secured four rebounds and two assists.
On Saturday, the Eagles were defeated at home by Mid-America University 61 – 54. JBU had a weak start and only scored 14 points in the first half while conceding 36. However, the Eagles were a vastly different team in the second half and put up a massive 40 points while only conceding 25. They exploded out on the court playing hard defense and executing a deadly offense. Junior Sierra Shipley scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds and three assists. However, the Lady Eagles 34.8 three-point percentage was not enough to secure a victory, and they fell to a third straight loss.
JBU’s upcoming opponents have had their last two games against The University of Science & Arts Oklahoma and Mid-American. Lubbock Christian secured a comfortable 86 – 54 win over The University of Science & Arts Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon.
“We’ve got to keep improving offensively and with consistency,” said Soderquist. “As you get to the end of the year you want to be playing consistently, not having one game playing well and one game playing not well.”