Mason Wittner—Staff Writer
Kennesaw State lost their first conference game of the season at Lipscomb Saturday 79-61.
Despite Deandrea Sawyers’ 24 points and 9 boards, the Owls (13-5, 2-1) shot a collective 23-60 from the field and were 7-26 from 3-point range. Aareon Smith also recorded 16 points for KSU.
“When you’re playing on the road your focus has to be on another level,” KSU head coach Nitra Perry said. “We just couldn’t find a rhythm. Even when the game was pretty close in single digits, we just weren’t gelling tonight. It was one of those days where we missed free throws, we missed shots, we missed putbacks. It just wasn’t a good performance.”
KSU found themselves in a fight from the opening tip as the Bisons (6-11, 1-2) jumped out to a quick 6-2 lead after just over two minutes of play. The Owls battled back to gain their first of three minimal leads as they held a 7-6 advantage with 16:36 left in the first half.
After seeing their deficit increase to five, the Owls once again appeared to find a rhythm as they pulled even with the Bisons at 13 points apiece with 12:23 remaining in the opening half.
The last lead of the game for the Owls came with 8:53 left in the half as a Valescia Dixon jump shot gave the Owls a 19-18 advantage. The momentum began to swing in favor of Lipscomb as they sparked an 11-0 run and found themselves on top 29-19 with four minutes to play.
Both sides traded shots for the remainder of the half, but the deficit remained large for the Owls as they trailed 35-26 at the break.
“It was a tough game,” Perry said. “I think they wanted it more than we wanted it and they just out-toughed us. They were resilient, they played 40 minutes, and we didn’t. And we know, any time you go on the road you have to play a complete basketball game.”
KSU trailed for the entirety of the second half and never managed to string along enough positive plays to mount a comeback.
The Bisons came out of the locker room with the same tenacity displayed in the first half as they scored four quick points and led 39-26 with 19:01 to play. After shrinking the deficit to 7 with 10:43 remaining, the Owls allowed the Bisons to double their lead in just over a minute as KSU trailed 56-42 with 9:34 remaining in the game.
Lipscomb maintained a double-digit lead for the final 10 minutes of play.
“I think the biggest thing to take away from it is just knowing ‘any given night’,” Perry said. “The A-Sun Conference has gotten a lot tougher over the years that I have been here. On any given night, anybody can win. We went into the conference game 2-0 and they went in 0-2. I think when you’re trying to learn how to win, you go into every game as if it’s your last and I didn’t think we did that. So, for us, just knowing that it doesn’t matter who you’re playing on whatever night, anybody can win depending on who plays harder.”
The Owls will look to bounce back in game two of a three-game road stint as they travel to Deland, Florida next Thursday Jan. 22 to take on Stetson.
