Hastings College Women's Basketball // HC Bronco Athletics
HASTINGS – The Hastings College women’s basketball team took on a tough Doane squad and lost 77-71 on Wednesday night inside Lynn Farrell Arena.
It was a slow start for the Lady Broncos as the Tigers jumped out to a 21-9 lead in the first quarter and ended the frame with a 25-13 lead.
The lead then ballooned to as many as 17 points before Hastings began to chip away. After a layup from Mariyah Avila, Kiernan Paulk hit a wide open Miriam Miller for three to make it 39-27 as Doane called a timeout.
Doane did push the lead back to 15 but Avila made another three to make it 42-30 with 1:53 to go but the Tigers would end up with a 15 point lead at halftime.
The lead hovered around 20 points for half of the third quarter but again Hastings would make a run as Lexi Kraft drained a three followed by a steal and layup from Miller to make it 61-46 with 3:39 to go in the third.
Alyssa Baker then attacked the lane and then kicked it out to Miller as she drained another three as HC was down by 12 with 2:29 left in the third. Paulk would later hit a three and following a Doane bucket she made a layup as Hastings trailed 65-55 heading to the fourth.
Both teams then went ice cold to start the final quarter which proved costly as this was a great chance for the Lady Broncos to close the gap but just couldn’t.
Hastings finally got the deficit to single digits with a Kraft three but could only get to within six before the final buzzer sounded.
Avila led Hastings with 19 points but was just 6-for-20 from the floor. Miller provided a nice spark off the bench scoring a season high 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting and was 3-for-5 from behind the arc. Kraft added 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting including going 4-of-6 from downtown while Paulk finished with 11 points.
Hastings finished the game shooting just 34.4 percent (22-for-64) from the floor compared to 48 percent (24-for-50) for Doane. The rebounding edge went to the Tigers 42-to-32 while Doane also scored 26 points in the paint compared to 18 for Hastings.
Hastings falls to 3-5 (1-3) on the year and will be back in action Saturday Dec. 2 as Northwestern comes to town with tipoff set for 2:00 pm inside Lynn Farrell Arena.