Lady Trailblazers fall in road Region 24 matchup at Rend Lake

INA, Ill. – The Vincennes University Lady Trailblazers hit the road Saturday afternoon and faced off against another team near the top of the Region 24 standings in Rend Lake College.

Vincennes fell behind in the second quarter before battling back in the fourth quarter but were unable to overcome the Lady Warrior lead as Rend Lake won 84-74 over VU.

The Lady Trailblazers got off to a fast start on the road, jumping out to a quick five point lead early in the first quarter.

VU would grow their lead to eight before the Warriors cut the deficit down to six with a late basket to end the first 10 minutes of play.

Vincennes continued to look strong early in the second quarter with their lead back to eight points before the Lady Warriors responded to close out the first half on an 11-2 scoring run to take a 32-29 lead into the locker room.

Rend Lake continued to ride this momentum in the second half as early turnovers by VU saw the Lady Blazers fall behind by 10 early in the third quarter.

The Warrior lead would remain in double-digits as VU trailed by 12 heading into the fourth quarter of play.

Rend Lake would continue to grow their lead midway through the fourth with the Blazers now trailing 72-55.

Vincennes then responded by finding some open shots near the basket and hitting a few shots from behind the arc to quickly cut the lead back to single digits.

Trailing by eight with just over a minute to play Vincennes played a full court press defense and managed to force Rend Lake into a few turnovers late.

The Lady Trailblazers were able to capitalize on some of this Rend Lake turnovers but ultimately could not cut into the lead as Rend Lake came away with the 84-74 win.

"It's becoming customary for us to get off to a slow start and not be able to get our offense going up and down the floor so we can get some easy open shots," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Harry Meeks said. "Every shot we took in the first half was contested. We did a very poor job of rebounding. Rend Lake had too many offensive rebounds and a majority of those turned into easy scores."

"We continue to foul too much and continue to send the other team to the free throw line too much," Meeks added after Rend Lake shot 28 of 32 on free throws. "It seemed like every time I looked up Rend Lake was shooting from the free throw line."

"Our defense was not what I thought it should be. We started out pretty good in the first quarter but it diminished over the rest of the game. I think some of our problems can be blamed on not playing very many games these past three weeks. Overall, I don't think we played hard. I thought Rend Lake outplayed us as far as effort."

"I thought we competed a little harder in the second half. I switched to a full court man-to-man defense and Rend Lake turned the ball over several times and helped us get back to within 10 points. But we are going to have to play a lot better basketball. That's my fault and I will take all the blame because I am the head coach and I have to get them to play harder and I've got to get them to execute the gameplan harder. I just felt like the game was very unorganized on our end. We didn't look like I had done enough to get this team prepared enough to win this game."

Vincennes was led offensively by sophomore Macy Michels (Teutopolis, Ill.) who set a new career-high with 17 points, while also grabbing a team-leading eight rebounds on the game.

Freshman Cherrelle Newsom (Indianapolis, Ind.) was the second Lady Trailblazer to score in double-figures, finishing with 13 points and three rebounds.

Sophomore Laila Grant (Derwood, Md.) ended her day with eight points, a team-high six assists and four rebounds.

Freshmen Trinitee Harris (Elkhart, Ind.) and Chanice Willis (Champaign, Ill.) added some scoring off the bench for VU with Harris finishing with nine points, four rebounds and four assists and Willis ending with seven points on three shots, six rebounds and a team-high three steals.

"Macy has worked very hard to get back from her injury last season," Meeks said. "She deserves all the credit for what she is doing. She's a good team-player and a leader for us. She does everything like you are supposed to. I'm really proud of her because she has had a lot of adversity to go through to get to this point."

"Cherrelle can shoot the ball," Meeks added. "But I don't think we did a good enough job of getting her the ball in positions where she can score. We are going to have to take some of the scoring burden off of her and have more than just one or two people scoring for us. We will keep working. This is a hard-working group. I told them we have some things that we need to correct but I'm still really proud of them in how we've gotten to this point, we just have some growing pains to get through and we need to get through those pains rather quickly to have a successful season."

The Lady Trailblazers will return home Monday, Jan. 17 when VU hosts Region 24 opponent Kaskaskia College at the P.E. Complex. Tip-off time will be at 5 p.m. eastern.

"We are going to have to play harder Monday," Meeks said. "We are going to have to play with a sense of urgency because we are 0-3 in our last three games. We are going to have to play with a little more fire and play with the knowledge that if we continue to play like we have been, we're not going to be a very successful team."

"We have to work on execution and we have to continue to focus everything we have into making it better," Meeks added. "We need to close out harder on the shooter. We need everyone on the floor to make a true effort to block out on the rebound. We have to be stronger around the basket to keep the other team from pushing us under the basket. Every game we've played this year we've been 'out toughed' around the basket."

"But we've got some good kids here and I hope we can get some things turned around tomorrow as we get back on the practice floor to try to get it straight."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (74): Day'Lynn Thornton 1-4 1-4 3, Cherrelle Newsom 4-13 3-3 13, Elena Aznar 0-2 0-0 0, Macy Michels 8-13 1-2 17, Laila Grant 3-14 0-0 8, Trinitee Harris 3-8 3-4 9, Chanice Willis 3-3 0-0 7, Candela Lascorz 2-3 0-2 4, Guadalupe Lopez 1-3 0-0 2, Kylee Shelton 3-8 0-0 6, Anete Bluma 2-3 0-0 5, Team 30-74 8-15 74.

VU (11-7, 4-2) – 19  10  19  26 – 74

Rend Lake – 13  19  28  24 – 84

Three-point goals: VU 6 (Newsom 2, Grant 2, Willis, Bluma). Rebounds: VU 33 (Michels 8). Assists: VU 18 (Grant 6). Steals: VU 9 (Michels 3, Willis 3). Blocked Shots: VU 2 (Lascorz, Shelton). Turnovers: VU 16. Personal Fouls: VU 24. Fouled out: Thornton. Technical Fouls: Thornton (1 – 6:37).