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MCC women come up short against DMACC

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON • Marshalltown Community College sophomore Alyssa Roth, center, glides through the lane while attempting a shot as DMACC’s Molly Mitchell, right, and Grace Stalzer (25) defend during the Tigers’ loss to the Bears on Wednesday.

Last time the Marshalltown Community College women’s basketball team met up with DMACC back in November, the Tigers suffered a 34-point loss to the Bears, their second-worst loss of the season.

That wasn’t the case on Wednesday night when MCC welcomed DMACC in for a rematch, as the Bears held just a one-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately for the Tiger faithful, one point down was the closest the MCC women would get, as they eventually fell to DMACC 65-55.

Marshalltown head coach Steve Garber said what kept his women in the game was a tough defensive effort, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to down the Bears.

“Defense will always keep you somewhere near the game. If you keep teams in the 50s you are somewhere there, and that’s kind of what we did,” Garber said. “Fouling at the end extended it a little bit, but we did as good as we are going to do.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON • Marshalltown Community College sophomore Loralei Siliga, left, goes strong to the basket against DMACC’s Deja Davis during the Tigers’ 65-55 loss to the Bears at home on Wednesday night.

MCC (8-17) held DMACC (18-6) to just 35 percent shooting, including a 13 percent mark in the third quarter during the comeback. While they were locking down the Bears in the third, Garber said his girls gave the ball up too much for his liking, as they had nine of their 13 turnovers in the second half.

“Turnovers caught up with us and we were very bad in the third quarter regarding that,” Garber said. “We can’t go five-on-five in practice so they don’t get used to that stuff, but they did as good as they could.”

Even though his team won so easily last time, DMACC head coach Steve Krafcisin said he knew MCC wasn’t going to roll over on Wednesday.

“We knew the second time we played them it would be a little different, playing on the road and we know Loralei (Siliga) is unbelievable,” Krafcisin said. “We knew it would be a battle, we had just come off of losing two games and our confidence was a little down so we knew it would be a battle.”

Siliga didn’t disappoint the visiting coach either, as she finished with a game-high 26 points and chipped in a game-high 11 rebounds for a double-double. Siliga said, considering the Tigers are down to just six players currently, she and the rest of the team are fighting every night to win, but it just didn’t come out in their favor on Wednesday.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“Especially with six players, every day we go in knowing there are six of us going with what we’ve got,” Siliga said. “Tonight we did really well on post defense and we are trying to switch things around. We really want to win so this was kind of a disappointment, but we were up there with them.”

Alyssa Roth and Claudia Morente, the other parts of MCC’s three-headed monster, each turned in 14 and 12 points respectively. They both turned it on in the second half too, Roth scoring 10 in the final 20 minutes and Morente seven while the Bears were focused on stopping Siliga.

Garber said they need all three of the top girls to score, and even when one is having an off night it can be disastrous.

“We have three people that can score, and when one gets tired — and that’s what happens, people get tired and lazy and their legs go out from under them — they struggle,” Garber said. “Loralei is the strongest player consistently and Alyssa can get to the basket. It’s just a matter of getting them the ball, that’s a great philosophy but when they don’t get the ball because we are turning the ball over, that’s the other players’ role.”

Molly Mitchell was the leading scorer for DMACC with 20 points, while Regan Shockley had 14 points and Beth Atwood had 10.

In the last two games, the Tigers have played teams that beat them handily earlier in the season and played them much tighter. Garber said he likes the way his girls are competing, but he still needs Siliga, Roth and Morente to show up big every night to get wins.

“We are playing good, there are still some things we are making adjustments to,” Garber said. “I thought our post defense was much better, it was more aggressive which we need to do. We have to have good games from our three, and tonight I thought we had decent games from two of them and one so-so. But we are getting better.”

The MCC women will attempt to continue that improvement on Saturday when they host Black Hawk College, starting at 5 p.m. That will be the first of a doubleheader for the Tigers on Saturday, and during both the men’s and women’s games MCC will be hosting a fundraiser for men’s soccer head coach Rafael Martinez’s son Pablo, who has been battling cancer since last September.

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