Bad start. Bad finish.
Bad result.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team watched the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay make its final 10 shots of the first quarter while building a 21-point lead Friday afternoon. The Mocs closed to within nine in the second half, but the Phoenix shot 72 percent in the fourth quarter on their way to a 71-55 win in front of 1,557 at McKenzie Arena.
The Mocs (3-4) will travel to Springfield, Mass., to face Maine in the final game of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame Challenge at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Lakelyn Bouldin led the Mocs with 16 points, with the freshman going 4-for-7 from 3-point range while playing all 40 minutes, and Queen Alford added 14 points, but no other UTC player had more than seven.
“Obviously we’ve got to come out better and stronger,” Bouldin said. “The difference was they came out ready and we didn’t.”
The Phoenix (4-1) were led by Mehryn Kraker’s 20 points and five assists. Sam Terry had 14 points in 17 minutes before an injury late in the game, while Jessica Lindstrom had 12 points and a team-high eight rebounds and Jenn Wellnitz matched Kraker’s assists total.
UWGB shot 59 percent from the field for the game, including a combined 19-for-23 in the first and fourth quarters. The Phoenix shot worse than 40 percent in the two middle quarters.
“I find it interesting that in a game where there was a ton of screens that facilitates communication if you’re going to be successful defending it, that we can defend it in the second and third quarters to a high level and give them one 3-pointer,” UTC coach Jim Foster said. “But in the first and fourth, we don’t have that sense of urgency.”
The Phoenix shot 11-for-12 in the first quarter, building a 27-6 lead as the Mocs came out cold and shot 2-for-10. The home team had a much better second-quarter performance, shooting 7-for-11 (64 percent) from the field, yet the Mocs were able to chip only three points off the lead and trailed 42-24 at halftime.
A 13-2 run helped the Mocs close to within single digits in the third quarter, with an Alford 3-pointer making it 46-37 with 4:51 to play. Sydney Vanlandingham made a pair of free throws after a Terry layup, and the Mocs had opportunities to cut even more into the lead but couldn’t convert.
UWGB’s Laken James hit a back-breaking 3-pointer to end the period, part of a 15-2 run that essentially put the game away.
“The hard part, the competitive part, we’re not playing teams that you cannot work for 40 minutes against,” Foster said. “The objective is to get good enough, and in my opinion we haven’t been that in my time here. We are getting our butts kicked on occasion, hopefully starting to learn the lesson of what it means to play for 40 minutes.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.