The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team suffered a second consecutive loss Thursday, falling 64-60 to Richmond in the consolation game of the Cherokee Invitational.
The Mocs had a better effort than the night before, when they suffered a lackluster 53-49 loss to Coastal Carolina, but it wasn’t enough against the Spiders (10-3). UTC did get a career-high 27 points off the bench from sophomore forward Raven Thompson, and senior Jada Guinn had 18 points, 11 rebounds and four assists, but the rest of the Mocs were a combined 5-for-22 from the field.
For the second straight night, the Mocs got off to a good start, this time jumping out to a 10-2 advantage before Richmond responded with a 12-0 run to end the first quarter. UTC would sneak back out in front briefly in the second quarter on a shot by Caia Elisaldez, but the Spiders led 27-21 at the break.
The Mocs would make some runs in the second half, but never got closer than four on a couple of occasions — the last on a putback by Guinn with six seconds to go which provided the final margin.
But head coach Shawn Poppie was in far better spirits after Thursday’s effort.
“We’ve got fight,” he said. “I told them before the game that – win, lose or draw — we were going to learn a lot about us today. How are we going to respond after the way we played and handled yesterday? I thought we responded great; we played very, very hard. It’s just the little things that beat us.
“We’re playing a lot of minutes with freshmen and it’s a learning curve.”
Hannah Kohn was the only other player to hit multiple shots, making two 3-pointers to account for six points. Elisaldez, Sigrun Olafsdottir and Addie Porter — who fouled out for a second consecutive night — had three each.
The Mocs (11-3) host North Carolina Central on Jan. 3.
— Compiled by Gene Henley