Close but no victory once again for QU women as season ends with another narrow loss

QUINCY — The Quincy University women’s basketball team gained plenty of experience playing in close games this season.

The next step is learning how to win them.

The University of Illinois-Springfield outscored the Hawks 16-11 over the final 1 minute, 54 seconds Saturday afternoon to grind out a 79-74 Great Lakes Valley Conference victory in the regular-season finale for both teams at Pepsi Arena.

It was another near miss for QU. Of its 28 games this season, half were decided by seven points or fewer. Of those, the Hawks won only five.

“It feels good for about five games that you’re in that maybe you shouldn’t be, or people think you shouldn’t be, then it gets old,” QU coach Courtney Boyd said of her team’s inability to prevail in close games, especially late in the season.

“Unfortunately, right now, it’s just the little things. It’s (giving up) 19 offensive rebounds, it’s (allowing) 42 points in transition. Those are two things that are very controllable defensively. When you get into holes offensively, you have to be even better in those situations, and that’s sometimes where we struggle.”

UIS entered as the second-highest scoring team in the GLVC (76.9 ppg) and the 18th-best offensive rebounding team in Division II. But it also is one of the most porous defensively, allowing 77.1 points per game, which ranks 285th out of 291 eligible Division II teams.

In a game that was tied 14 times overall and saw 10 lead changes in the first half alone, the Hawks went up 35-29 with 1:58 left in the second quarter on a 3-pointer by Mariann Blass. But aided by turnovers and missed shots, the Prairie Stars scored the final eight points of the half to go up 37-35.

QU responded, however, by scoring the opening 10 points of the third quarter. A conventional three-point play by Cymirah Williams and a 3-pointer by Janiece Dawson from the left corner gave the Hawks a 45-37 lead at the 7:12 mark.

Despite giving up height and heft inside, the 5-foot-11 Williams made 12 of 18 field goals tries and all six free throws to finish with a season-high 30 points to go along with 11 rebounds.

“You had to be OK with the contact that was coming,” Williams, a junior, said of the physical game in the paint. “They’re known for hard contact. You had to play through it and not worry about anything.”

UIS, which outscored the Hawks 18-2 in transition points in the first half and 42-13 overall, used its speed and quickness to go back on the attack.

Four of its six baskets in the third period came in transition, and guard Jessenia Lawson’s acrobatic fast-break layup and free throw off a steal put the Prairie Stars ahead 54-53 entering the fourth quarter.

Lawson, the team’s leading scorer who didn’t play in the first meeting won 69-66 by QU on Jan. 20, scored a team-high 17 points.

“We let them speed us up and we didn’t keep our composure,” Williams said.

Lawson’s layup off a steal by Saharra Murphy in the backcourt pushed the UIS lead to 60-55 with 7:29 to go. But Blass hit a jumper from the left baseline and then made one of two free throws, and two more free throws by Acheampomaa Danso tied it at 60-all.

The game was tied twice more. Danso was called for hooking a defender, nullifying a putback basket that would have put QU in front, and Michaela Gibbons hit the first of two free throws to give the Prairie Stars a 64-63 lead with 1:54 remaining.

Gibbons missed the second free throw, but UIS was awarded the ball on a tie-up on the rebound and Kaya Rice buried a 3-pointer from the right wing to increase the advantage to 67-63. After a missed QU shot, Jazlynn Givens scored on a fast-break layup to put the lead at six.

“Every time we missed a shot or turned it over, they capitalized on it,” Boyd said.

The Prairie Stars led by as many as nine in the final minute before Williams was fouled on a successful putback and hit the free throw to pull the Hawks within 75-69. A late 3-pointer by Dawson and a pull-up jumper from the lane by Williams got QU within four before Rice’s free throw ended it.

Blass finished with 13 points and Dawson 10 for the Hawks, who, outside of Williams, struggled from the field. They made only 4 of 20 3-point tries overall and shot just 35 percent from the floor over the final three quarters.

“When those big-time shots aren’t falling, it puts a lot more pressure on our post players,” Boyd said.

Rice (16), Liz Uh (14) and Amaya Asher (10) also reached double figures for UIS, which snapped a two-game losing streak to improve to 15-13 overall and 13-9 in the GLVC. Seeded fifth, the Prairie Stars will play No. 4 Maryville Friday in the first round of the league’s postseason tournament.

In losing for the sixth time in its final seven games, QU finished 10-18 overall and 9-13 in the GLVC to miss out on a return trip to the league tourney. Only two of those defeats were by more than six points.

“Three possessions that we needed to dig deeper and play harder, especially at the end of games,” Williams said of the narrow losses. “That’s what we have to work on during the offseason.”