Hawks fight through top-ranked Lakers’ relentless pressure to stay within striking distance

QUINCY — Mariann Blass nodded her head in agreement.

Standing near Quincy University women’s basketball teammate Nicole McDermott as they discussed Friday’s 73-58 loss to No. 1-ranked Grand Valley State, Blass couldn’t help but react to a question posed to McDermott about the Lakers’ baseline-to-baseline defensive pressure.

Was Grand Valley State’s relentless effort taxing?

“Yeah, it definitely wears you down,” McDermott said. “But I feel like a couple of our games leading up to today prepared us for that. All week, we were working on breaking the press and what we were going to do to handle the pressure. And like I said, we were prepared coming into the game.”

Still, the physical and emotional toll it takes can be overwhelming.

“It does help having the adrenaline you have and the will to want to win,” said Blass, who led the Hawks with 17 points. “It helps and it kind of takes over a little bit, but you definitely get gassed.”

That’s when the mental mistakes happen, just the way they did in the third quarter in Pepsi Arena.

Quincy went to halftime trailing only 28-24, but that deficit grew to 39-26 just 2 ½ minutes into the third quarter as Grand Valley State knocked down three consecutive 3-pointers. The Lakers, who made only two 3-pointers the rest of the game, had open looks on each third-quarter attempt.

“We talked about contesting threes,” QU coach Courtney Boyd said. “They had to be contested. They were wide open and they knocked them down.”

It enabled the Lakers to jump into their full-court press, which in turn put the Hawks on their heels.

“They never go away,” Boyd said. “And that was one thing I was hoping we would continue to do. We wanted to be the ones who never went away. We didn’t want to let them get it out to 12 or 14 points and they just explode it out to 25.”

It was on the verge of that early in the fourth quarter.

Trailing by 14 points with three minutes to play in the third quarter, Quincy chiseled the deficit to eight before it ballooned back to 12 points heading into the fourth quarter. Grand Valley State pushed the advantage to 18 points on a Nicole Kamin layin with 7:55 to play.

The Lakers managed to score just four points over the next 4 ½ minutes, going 1 of 9 from the field and 0 of 4 from 3-point range. Meanwhile, the Hawks chiseled away at the deficit, pulling within 62-56 with 3:04 remaining on Blass’ 3-pointer.

Grand Valley State forward Rylie Bisballe answered with a three-point play just nine seconds later and Quincy never got closer.

The Hawks shot 36.7 percent from the field, but only 25 percent in the fourth quarter, and were saddled with 31 turnovers that led to the Lakers scoring 30 points off turnovers. Yet, there was optimism and hope in the waning minutes.

That’s a good sign with a pair of top-25 programs awaiting the Hawks next weekend when they fly to Hilo, Hawaii, for the Big Island Classic. Quincy plays No. 6 Fort Hays State at 10 p.m. next Friday and Western Washington at 11 p.m. Saturday.

“I don’t want to say we surprised ourselves, because we knew we could do it, but seeing the game end that way boosts our confidence a ton,” Blass said. “We know we can hang with all of the best teams that are out there.”

All it takes is execution and effort.

“We learn a lot about ourselves,” McDermott said. “We learn we can be on the floor with anyone. We can compete with anyone when we really focus on the game plan and execute what we need to on both ends of the floor.”