On Saturday, Feb. 17, the Bluffton University Women’s Basketball team (19-6, 14-4 HCAC) played host to the Franklin College Grizzlies (7-17, 6-12 HCAC) on senior day and won with a season-high score of 98-82.
Bluffton honored their 2017-18 senior class that is the winningest class in Bluffton history at 83-23 (78.3 percent). The class consisted of Abigail O’Donnell (Arcanum), Kaycee Rowe (Harrod/Allen East) and the all-time leading scorer in Bluffton University history, Macey Sheerer (Bucyrus).
The leading scorer of the game was Rowe, who finished with 26 points and nine rebounds.
“It was a really emotional day,” said Rowe on her senior day victory. “We knew that they (Franklin) were going to play hard because if they won, they got into the conference tournament.”
If it was not for the snowy conditions on Saturday, this women’s basketball team would have flooded Copeland Court with how much they were making it rain because Bluffton came out firing on all cylinders.
The Beavers went 17-35 (48.6 percent) from the field and shot an impressive 8-12 (66.7 percent) from the 3-point line in the first half taking a 46-31 lead.
Leading the charge for the Beavers was sophomore guard Breanna Graham (Springboro) as she was still on fire from long range from Wednesday night’s game against Manchester. Graham had 10 points on 4-6 shooting from the field and 2-3 from behind the 3-point line.
Freshman Nora Hemminger (McComb) also finished the half coming off of the bench with 10 points on a perfect shooting percentage from the field (3-3) and from behind the 3-point arc (2-2).
“I think that’s a credit to developing some younger kids as you move through the year,” said Head Coach Chad Shutler on the underclassmen coming off of the bench. “When you get to this point, I mean, you hope as a coach that the kids that are getting 10 to 15 to 20 minutes a game, at this point they’re no longer freshmen. You have to play like you got experience.”
The underclassmen on the team really stepped up in this game. Hemminger finished with 14 points, TJ Mills (Dayton/Chaminade-Julienne) and Graham each had 13 points apiece, Heidi Craddock (Lima/Bath) finished with nine points.
“All these kids are underclassmen, so that’s what we need as we move forward in the tournament season,” said Coach Shutler. “We have to shoot the ball well outside of our gym, in somebody else’s environment. Confidence is really big but that’s a credit for those kids knocking down shots and you hope that’s a product of them working hard and developing and being more confident in themselves than have been earlier in the year.”
The Beavers defense showed up in the first half limiting Franklin to 39.4 percent shooting from the field and 20 percent from 3-point land.
In the second half, Bluffton’s defense stayed in the locker room. The Grizzlies went 16-33 (48.5 percent) from the field and 8-15 (53.3 percent) from the 3-point line and posted 51 points in the second half.
Bluffton did not let the Grizzlies offense slow them down. They still stayed hot from the field, shooting an even better 51.4 percent. The three ball wasn’t working for the Beavers in the second half as they went 1-7, but they got back to their brand of basketball; driving to the hoop.
The Beavers scored 34 points in the paint in the second half, tallying 12 offensive rebounds to help their efforts.
Next up for this Bluffton University Women’s basketball team is a Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament game at home against the Mount Saint Joseph Lions who drew the sixth seed.
