QU women unable to overcome fatigue in second half of loss to Truman State

QUINCY — A 15-day layoff and a shortened bench proved to be too much for the Quincy University women’s basketball team to overcome once fatigue took hold.

The Hawks trailed Truman State by five points at halftime in Tuesday night’s Great Lakes Valley Conference game at Pepsi Arena before allowing 21 points in the third quarter and going 5 of 15 from the field in the fourth quarter of a 68-59 loss.

“Winter break is always hard,” QU senior point guard Maddie Spagnola said. “The first game after break is always hard. But being down numbers is kind of hard, too. In the second half, fatigue for sure got the best of us.”

Quincy (4-7, 0-3 GLVC) ended the pre-Christmas portion of its schedule with three consecutive victories but had not played since beating 71-62 on the road December 20. 

“The break came at the wrong time for us,” QU coach Kaci Bailey said. “You lose a little bit of your cardio, and I think fatigue got the best of us.”

Making matters worse, they had only nine players available Tuesday night.

Junior point guard Beth Matas Martin, the team’s leader in scoring (10.4 ppg) and assists (5.2 apg), was still in COVID protocols but on the bench in street clothes. Senior guard Amanda Porth remained sidelined with a leg injury that has kept her sidelined since the third game of the season.

Three others — Riley Hett, Alexis Wolfe and Natali Haynes — were absent as well.

“We’re very limited right now,” Bailey said. “We can’t even practice 5-on-5 right now.”

The return of sophomore guard Gabi Burns helped. She scored two points and grabbed a rebound in 12 minutes off the bench in her first action due to injury since playing 23 minutes against Wisconsin-Parkside on November 13.

“She’s moving well,” Bailey said. “She played really good defense. I’m excited to have her back in the rotation. Hopefully getting her back and having (Matas Martin) back on Thursday will help.”

The Hawks need to find consistency offensively. The Bulldogs rattled off a 12-3 run to end the first half, limiting the Hawks to 1-of-9 shooting with four turnovers in that stretch.

Quincy then scored only four points in the first four minutes of the third quarter, falling behind 41-31. The deficit grew to 13 points by the end of the quarter and 17 points a little more than four minutes into the fourth quarter as the Hawks made just one of their first seven shots of the final frame.

“We really have to work on scoring the ball,” said Spagnola, who finished with 14 points, eight rebounds and four assists. “We missed all those little jumpers.”

Truman State didn’t. The Bulldogs (6-5, 2-1 GLVC) shot 45.8 percent from the field and 55.3 percent from inside the 3-point stripe. Hannah Belanger led Truman State with 25 points, while Ellie Weltha had 12 points and 12 rebounds.

“Conference play is the biggest grind of the season,” Spagnola said. “But we know what we have to do moving forward.”

That’s rest up with a game Thursday at home against Southwest Baptist and a trip Saturday to William Jewell.

“The big thing is we have to recover,” Bailey said. “Whoever can recover the best is going to win games.”