Madison College’s women’s basketball team opened its season on the road on Nov. 2 against McHenry County College. The WolfPack lost to the Scots, 88-48.
Although the score didn’t reflect it, coach Lois Heeran noted that there were positives in the game.
“We played hard a lot of the game, but a lot of mistakes were on ours, right? We missed free throws. We missed shots. We missed some defensive assignments. It’s a lot of fundamentals that we just got to get better at,” said Heeran.
The team had a total of 29 turnovers, most of them happening in the first half of the game.
“It’s a lot of things that we can control that we need to do a better job of, and we will,” said Heeran. “So we’ll just continue working on those little things and you know, we just need to be the best version of ourselves.”
This was the first collegiate match for most of the players. Three freshmen, Amareyna Knox, Larissa Pickel and Taylor Ripp led the team with 10 points each. The team is composed of eight freshmen and one sophomore. Heeran said that influenced how the game went.
“I thought we were a little starstruck at the beginning and probably just the pace of it and just a lot of little things, and not having played a game probably took a huge toll as well but, you know, now they’ve got a game underneath their belt,” said Heeran. “Now they know what it’s like, so it’s great to be back. Great to have fans here. We’ll do all right, we’ll be all right.”
The men’s team also lost to the Division II Scots with a score of 78-53.
Although the WolfPack stayed close to the Scots during the first half of the game, the Scots pulled away after halftime.
Telin Porter, a freshman from Texas, led the team with 13 points. Another freshman, Nik Feller, contributed 10 points and four rebounds.
Freshman Keith Hoffman got 11 rebounds, followed by seven rebounds from Trevon Liggins.
“Our focus for next game is just execution and playing as a team, moving the ball, get assists. I think we had a lot of assists last game but just sharing the ball and, you know, making the next best pass and playing together as a team. And executing what we want to execute and not allowing the other team to dictate things,” said coach Jamal Palmer.
The team had a total of nine assists, led by Ma’Teo Holland with three assists.
The women’s team will play their first home game on Nov. 10 with the men’s team opening at home on Nov. 8.