By Nicholas Gallo
St. Bonaventure Women’s basketball (5-6) would commit 27 turnovers in a 76 -59 loss to the University of Buffalo Bulls (8-1) in a Big 4 rivalry game at the Reilly Center. Mckenna Maycock would only play seven minutes in this game as she suffered a leg injury during the beginning parts of the game.
Maycock would be subbed-out at the 6:36 mark of the first period after injuring her leg diving and scrambling for the ball underneath the opponent’s basket.
She would not be seen on the floor until the second period with 4:44 left. She would eventually be subbed out soon after and would not return for the rest of the game.
Maycock has been a vital part of the Bonnies offense this season averaging 12.4 points per game and has scored in double figures in half of the games this far in the season. Coming off a dominant performance against Penn State University scoring 23 points, Maycock would be missed.
Head coach of the Bonnies, Jesse Fleming, said after the game there was no update on a Maycock only that she injured her leg. Fleming said she would be re-evaluated by the doctors tomorrow and has no idea what it is.
“She’s an attacker,” Fleming said. “Obviously when your leading scorer is out its going to hurt your offense, but I think there were times that people step up, but overall we needed the bench to step up even a little bit more.”
Fleming hopes the team learned from this and know that they will be put into that opportunity again. Even without Maycock, the Bonnies would show some fight against the Bulls being down 51-48.
Bonnies forward Arielle Harvey and guard Danielle Migilore would step up. Harvey would score 14 points in the first half while shooting 4-7 from the field and a perfect 4-4 from the foul line. Migilore would contribute by scoring nine points while shooting fifty percent from the field and grabbing four rebounds.
Head coach of the Bulls, Felisha Jack said they were concerned and knew that Bonas was a third-quarter team. Before the game, Bonas was owning opponents in the third quarter by a scoring margin of +58.
“We were player-to-player all the first half defensively,” said Jack. “We threw a wrinkle in our defensive scheme by switching into our 3-2 because it seemed are players were on edge and I think playing into are original matchup helped are players relax in the second half.”
As the Bulls defensive intensity picked up, the Bonnies offense would struggle to hold onto the ball and putting the ball in the hoop. The Bonnies would shoot 28.6 percent from the field and turn the ball over 15 times.
“We were scoring well against there man-to-man the first half but when they changed into their zone, are ball-movement wasn’t as good, we were attacking the gaps to early, and I didn’t like the looks we were getting,” said Fleming. “We spent all week trying to go against their 3-2 and obviously I didn’t prepare them enough.”
With Maycock out, coach Fleming had to go to the bench and got some production from Keely Fresh, Abigail Johnson, and Rhianna Council. Fresh would get her first significant minutes of the season and made them count by scoring an and-one three-point shot and a free throw in 15 minutes.
“She is another shooter to have on the floor and got a big rebound at one point,” Fleming said. “It’s always nice to have another shooter, another floor spacer, and she is only going to keep getting better and better.”
In the end, Bonas would get outscored by the Bulls in the second half 35-21 with the Bulls having four players score in double figures.
“We’ve got to learn to take care of the ball and that’s a broken record this year, unfortunately,” said Fleming. “We need to learn how to make better decisions by keeping our focus, players getting stronger their roles so I can trust the bench more, and I hope that this kind of game teaches us a lesson to remain sharp for 40 minutes when playing top teams in our league.”
The Bonnies end their homestead and travel to the University of Albany to face the Great Danes on Sunday, Dec. 17 at 2 p.m.
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