Cowgirls Forget to Pack Offense and Shooting for Trip to St. John's and NYC
Oklahoma State came in ranked No. 18 in the nation and sporting a 5-0 record with an average of 105.6 points per game, shooting 52.3 percent on the season, and starting three of the top three-point shooters in the country. This was the first test on the road and against a team that would hit back. St. John’s did and the Cowgirls found themselves down 35-25 at halftime. Despite a strong third quarter, St. John’s prevailed 74-67 to go 4-1 on the season, three wins at home. The Cowgirls fell to 5-1 and lost their first try away from Stillwater.
“We didn’t do the things that you have to do to win on the road,” head coach Jacie Hoyt said immediately after the game. “We have a long way to go. We were never able to get into transition and when we did we weren’t able to execute.”
The Cowgirls got the game back to even after three quarters as they outscored the home team 22-12 in that quarter. It was Oklahoma State’s best shooting quarter by far and featured Lena Girardi with her homecoming and some 45 family and friends inside Lou Carnesecca Arena hitting a three-pointer midway through the quarter to narrow the game to three. Girardi finished with 10 points.
Stailee Heard gave the Cowgirls the lead with two free throws at 41-40.
St. John’s did not go away and it took a fall away jumper in the paint from Jadyn Wooten at the end of the third for the 47-47 tied.
Unfortunately for the Cowgirls, the fourth quarter looked way too much like the first half and St. John’s had put the first blemish on the Cowgirls season.
The home team outscored OSU 27-to-20 in the final period with Janeya Grant hitting a three with 5:46 to play and a 58-51 lead. Another key basket came when Beautiful Waheed, who had seven points scored ona drive late in a possession and was fouled by Micah Gray and converted that “and one” for a 61-52 lead. Brooke Moore led a balanced St. John’s team in scoring as they shot 59 percent from the field. They surprisingly outrebounded OSU 31-21.
“We didn’t do a very good job of containing them and when we did we fouled too much,” Hoyt said of the Red Storm’s offense. “We had a hard time with their athleticism.”
Oklahoma State shot 40 percent from the field, a season low. Heard had 15 points to lead, Achol Akot had 13. Akot, Whiting, and Akot all fouled out in the late stages of the contest.
How rough was the first half? Oklahoma State went without a field goal, two or three point make the final 9:37 of the first half, in others words the Cowgirls had one made field goal the entire second period. This is what they’d been doing to the likes of New Orleans, East Texas A&M. Langston, and Prairie View A&M.
Meanwhile, St. John’s shot 58 percent including starting the game six-for-nine to jump out to a 12-point lead. Kylie Lavelle hit the Red Storm’s only three-pointer in the first half and had 9 points. St. John’s outrebounded the Cowgirls 19-9 and on several possessions got as many as three tries at the basket. Oklahoma State shot 30 percent from the field and 22 percent from three-point range even though they doubled the Red Storms’s treys with Heard and Amari Whiting each making a three. Cowgirls head coach Jacie Hoyt spent the whole half agitated and yelling.
Oklahoma State will host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Monday at 6:30 p.m. A one-game homestand before they leave later in the week for the Cayman Islands Classic.
