Saginaw Valley State hands

WSU third straight loss

Jeff Buck
Staff Writer

Wayne State was defeated 69-60 by Saginaw Valley State, extending the Warriors' losing streak to three games in the final home contest in the careers of three WSU seniors.

Honored before the game on Senior Day were Bethany Mesko, Ralphane Peyton and Cherita Smith.
A Peyton lay up 16 seconds into the contest gave WSU (10-16, 8-8 GLIAC) its only lead of the first half.

After going down by as many as 15 points, WSU headed to the locker room down 35-23 after a Brooke Bowers jumper and a Rebecca Meyer free throw.

"Physically we were flat, mentally we were flat and we weren"t aggressive enough," Wayne State head coach Gloria Bradley said. ŇWhen you hit a stretch like that, where youŐre struggling, you need to bring a little more intensity to the table.

"You have to get a little more aggressive and we really never did that in the first half and that cost us."

WSU came out much more aggressive in the second half after a bizarre last-minute entrance by SVSU (10-14, 7-9), who took the court after skipping second half warm ups.

Nicole Rogers sank a three-pointer to begin an 18-5 WSU run that gave Wayne State the 41-40 advantage.

"We made sure to come out with more intensity," Chastidy Miller said. "We were shooting more, taking the open shots, driving to the basket, getting them in foul trouble. We just started playing our game."

The Warriors lead lasted 24 seconds as the Cardinals took back control and built their lead to as many as 12 points with just over seven minutes remaining.

In a final effort to reclaim the lead, Wayne State cut SVSU's advantage to five points with 4:23 to play after a pair of free throws from Joy Nash and a Smith lay up.

It wasn't enough though, as Latille Ross led the Cardinals down the stretch, closing the game scoring six of Saginaw Valley's last nine points.

"We ran out of gas because we dug such a big hole in the beginning of the game," Nash said. "We had to fight like crazy to get back in the game and just got lackadaisical when we maintained a lead, instead of continuing to play aggressive and hard to bury them."

Peyton led the Warriors with 14 points (4-of-7 from the field), shooting a career-high 6-of-6 from the free-throw line. Rogers grabbed 11 boards to go along with four points and two steals.

Nash finished the game with five assists, bringing her season total to 134 and moving her into seventh place on the WSU single-season list.

The Warriors travel to Hillsdale for their final game of the regular season at 1 p.m. Saturday. WSU will head back to Hillsdale the following Tuesday at 7 p.m. for the first game of the GLIAC tournament.

The South End, February 19, 2007