Inability to sustain energy, effort leads to another single-digit loss for QU women’s basketball team

QUINCY — Kaci Bailey’s exasperation resulted in a complete overhaul of the Quincy University women’s basketball team’s lineup midway through the third quarter Monday night.

“I said put five new ones in,” the second-year Hawks coach said. “I didn’t even know who was in.”

All Bailey was certain of was her starters weren’t providing the effort or energy necessary to rally. Trailing 30-28 at halftime, Quincy allowed Lewis to build a nine-point edge by giving up 17 points in five minutes.

“Energy and effort are non-negotiable in our program,” Bailey said. “We just didn’t have it.”

The group that took the floor found enough of it to trim the deficit to two by the end of the third quarter and keep it a two-possession game for another four minutes. Ultimately, Lewis extended the advantage back to nine points and finished off a 73-64 victory in Great Lakes Valley Conference play at Pepsi Arena.

“We’re going to have to figure out how to string plays together,” QU freshman guard Rylee Denbow said. “We can’t keep going back and forth with teams. We’re not that type of team. Our defense keeps us in games, but our offense hasn’t. We put so much pressure on our defense, and we have to take that off our defense by doing a better job of scoring on offense.”

None of it’s possible without the energy and effort Bailey demands.

The Flyers opened the second half by hitting five of their first seven shots, getting to the free-throw line three times and hitting a pair of 3-pointers. That’s when Bailey sat the five players on the floor and inserted a new group that included no true point guard and freshman forward Paige Gamble, who had appeared in one of the previous six games.

“We huddled up and said, ‘We have to get stops here,’” said QU senior forward Emma Knipe, a starter who was part of the second five that entered the game. “We knew we had to get the game back to one possession or two possessions.”

A steal and a transition basket on the first possession out of the timeout put the Flyers ahead by 12, but they were held to one field goal the final 4:24 of the third quarter as the Hawks put together a 12-2 run to get within 51-49 on Sydney Runsewe’s 3-pointer with eight seconds to play.

“Whoever is on the floor has to bring energy no matter what,” Denbow said.

That was a struggle at times. Quincy (2-5, 0-2 GLVC) was outscored 22-15 in the fourth quarter and made just 4 of 11 field goals and 1 of 4 3-pointers the final 10 minutes.

“Getting over the hump is buying in every day and working hard and giving all we had,” said Knipe, who finished with 13 points and seven rebounds. “We do that on a day-to-day basis. We just have to put that into situations like tonight where things don’t go our way.”

Denbow added 11 points, and Sarah Nelson finished with 10.

“I’m extremely disappointed, not in the loss, but in our energy and effort,” Bailey said. “That’s not our brand of basketball. … I thought we came out lackadaisical. I thought we came out tired. We weren’t guarding. We pride ourselves on defense. It just wasn’t there.”

It’s why another single-digit loss occurred. That’s four of five losses by nine points or less.

“We just need to get one win and the rest will start rolling,” Denbow said. “We’re this close.”

The Hawks are confident they can close that miniscule gap.

“We’re very confident, and we’re waiting for it to happen,” Denbow said. “(Bailey) busted her butt in recruiting and bringing us in. We have a lot of young and new faces. Once we can tie it all together, we will be really good.”