Facing a nationally-ranked team for the first time this season, Lourdes suffered an 87-54 loss on the road to eighth-ranked Davenport on Saturday afternoon at the DU Student Center in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The Panthers turned 30 Lourdes turnovers into 40 points, which proved to be the difference in the game.
"They are a very good team," head coach
Karen McConnell said afterwards. "They have some very good athletes. At the same time, there were some controllable things that we could have done that we didn't. We turned the ball over way too much, and didn't have people back in transition."
Leading 16-9 after the opening period, Davenport opened the second quarter with nine straight points and would maintain the double figure lead the rest of the game. The Panthers led 43-26 at intermission, and pushed the advantage to 22 points after three. An 8-0 run late in the game helped the hosts create the final margin.
"We competed for a while, but they were able to continue to pull away throughout," McConnell added. "We do continue to make some progress offensively though, shooting over 40% for the fourth straight game."
Andrea Hodge (Westerville, Ohio/Central H.S.) led Lourdes with 12 points while
Constance Conner (Cleveland, Ohio/Brush H.S.) added eight points off of the bench.
Lindsey Motycka (Convoy, Ohio/Crestview H.S.) and
Niki Meyer (Liberty Center, Ohio/Liberty Center H.S.) contributed seven points each. Lourdes shot 41.1% from the floor on the afternoon.
Motycka and
Jesse Fidler (Archbold, Ohio/Archbold H.S.) each pulled down a team-high eight rebounds.
Tiesha Stokes led Davenport (8-2, 6-0 WHAC) with 17 points while Alex Law added 12 points. Momo Neal and Mallory Sewell each chipped in 10 points as the Panthers finished with four players in double figures.
Lourdes (4-9, 1-5) will head to Cincinnati Christian on Friday afternoon in a game that was moved up one day on the schedule. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. at Presidents Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio.
