The Hillballers, the nickname the women’s club basketball team has given themselves, faced off against Palo Alto College (PAC) Nov. 6. Notably, this was the first game of the season where both teams had the same amount of players – a low of six, resulting in one substitution at a time.
PAC won the tip-off, but club President Jada Rae stole the ball, making moves down court for an attempted layup. Rae missed the shot, and PAC got an early 4-0 lead. Turnovers resulted from both teams until Jennifer Arroyo made a shot in post, with Daphnee Morina stealing the ball the next play. Vice President Agatha Ais stole the ball, which led to a missed three point shot and the first timeout of the game.
Afterwards, Ais fouled on a three point attempt, but PAC missed two of the three free throws. Then, Ais scored a layup and a defensive rebound on the other side of the court. Sydney Carrigan drained a three pointer at the top of the key. Ais then stole the ball that later resulted in a layup. Rae then hit a mid range jumper to take the lead 12-10. After two separate fouls on PAC, of which they only made two, the first quarter was a close 14-12, SEU trailing. Right before the buzzer, Morina hit a shot to tie up the game.
In the second quarter, PAC hit a three on the first play, which led to multiple scoring drives that left SEU trailing. Carrigan had a missed three attempt, which Ais converted into a putback layup. Rae was then fouled and made both shots, and PAC called another timeout. Afterwards, Rae made another shot, bridging their gap in score to less than 10. Rae then stole the ball and converted a fast break layup. Carrigan connected with a shot behind the arc right before the halftime buzzer to trail PAC 28-25.
Ais hit a shot in the beginning of the third quarter, then stole the ball and connected with a reverse layup. Arroyo blocked a shot attempt, causing the crowd to erupt in cheers. Carrigan hit another three pointer, and ran it back on the next play to get a nice lead of 34-29. Then, there were several missed shot opportunities until Arroyo was able to secure a rebound and a put back shot. Arroyo was fouled on a shot attempt, but then the referees overturned the call and gave SEU an inbounds pass, which Ais used to hit a baseline jumper. She then stole the ball from PAC before they had a chance to beat the buzzer.
In the fourth quarter, PAC started running a full court press on hilltoppers, which SEU broke easily. Arroyo hit another baseline shot. The game was excruciatingly close as the clock wound down. Rae then hit a shot from behind the arc at the top of the key. With two minutes left on the game clock, SEU had a five point lead. Arroyo had another layup as time ran out. PAC then started purposely fouling to draw out the game clock. Morina was sent to the free throw line, where she connected with one of her two shot attempts. St. Edward’s won the game with a final score of 49-42.
“I’m feeling great,” Rae said. “We’ve been struggling a lot to get a win. We’ve had a couple losses by 30, a couple by 15 and now we finally won by 10. So it feels great. I’m really happy for the girls. I know we needed this, so I think this is going to help a lot in our next game and our next semester tournament.”
The team, which functioned with Rae as head coach, has recently acquired Isaiah Halliburton, a player from Huston-Tillotson, as their new coach.
“It’s a big lift off of my shoulders,” Rae said. “I’m able to expand more as a player and with this new coach, he has us working a lot more on our shooting and our handles, which has helped us tremendously, but also how to read our defense, read our offense, he’s setting us up so that we have options out there. So of the chaos that it used to be, our defense has gotten a lot better. We’re communicating more as a team, and I think we’re just going to keep focusing on working on that and making it better.”
The team will be traveling for their final game on Wednesday, Nov 13. Stay updated on their Instagram, @seuwcbasketball.
