Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams got wins this past Saturday against Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (Fort Wayne). The wins round out each team’s Indiana-based chapter of their remaining Summit League games.
The men’s team won 73-62, while the women won at Magness, 71-66 over the Mastodons.
Junior and sophomore guards Brett Olson and Bryant Rucker helped spoil Fort Wayne’s senior day at the Gates Center, scoring 18 points apiece, while senior forward Alison Janicek showed the way for the women’s team, grabbing her second double-double of the year with 15 rebounds and a career-high 21 points.
The weekend did not start out as planned for either team. Both dropped games to nearby Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) last Thursday.
“We’ve been playing really well over the last six games and we just didn’t play well,” head men’s coach Joe Scott said regarding the loss at IUPUI. “We got off to a good start, and then we had some miscues, missed layups, missed foul shots and turnovers.”
The Pio men’s team went just 2-of-8 from beyond the arc in the opening frame against the IUPUI Jaguars and went on to score just 49 points, its fewest in a game this season. The Jaguars won, 59-49, and also earned their first conference victory of the season.
With a game at Fort Wayne less than 48 hours away, the men’s team was not given much time to dwell on the loss to the last-place team in the Summit League, nor did it seem like the team wanted to, as they gutted out an 11-point win over the 19-9 Fort Wayne Mastodons.
The women’s team fell to the Jaguars as well last Thursday in a double-digit 55-68 loss. Sixteen turnovers along with a four-minute 12-4 Jaguar run in the second half proved to be too much for the Pios to overcome.
However, the Pios women’s team got their sixth win of the season, thanks to an 81.5 free throw percentage (22-of-27) and double-doubles by Janicek and junior forward Theresa Wirth. Strong defense also had a hand in the win, as the Pios held the Fort Wayne Mastodons to 27.8 percent from 3-point land on the game, and 3-of-16 in the second half.
“I’m so very proud of them on the defensive end,” head coach Kerry Cremeans said after the win over Fort Wayne. “All week just went into focusing on bettering our defense. We knew we had the offensive weapons, and you see that anyone on this team can score.”
Sophomore guard Kailey Edwards had 20 points in the win to complement the double digit performances of Wirth and Janicek.
Western Illinois University and the University of Nebraska Omaha will come to town starting this Thursday, marking the season’s final home games for the men’s team. On the other hand, the women’s team heads to Illinois and Nebraska over the weekend for the regular season road finale.
