Bulldogs Score First Conference Victory

The women’s bas­ket­ball team split its two home games this weekend

The Ferris women’s bas­ket­ball team won their first con­fer­ence game on Thursday with a 75–67 vic­tory over the Ashland Eagles.

Junior guard Becci Houdek led all scor­ers with 20 points and five assists. Junior for­ward Tiara Adams recorded a double-double with 19 points, 14 of which came in the sec­ond half, and 10 rebounds.

As a team, the Bulldogs shot 46.7 per­cent from the court, includ­ing 36.8 per­cent from the three-point line. Ferris had 22 second-chance points and held the Eagles to only 10. Sophomore guard/forward Kelsey DeNoyelles said the team’s pri­mary focus has been on defense and rebounding.

“We never back down or hang our heads,” said DeNoyelles.

The Bulldogs took a 20–19 lead with eight min­utes left in the first half and never trailed the rest of the way. The game was close through­out, how­ever, as the largest lead for either team was just eight points. Head coach Tracey Dorow said the team sent a new mes­sage to other teams.

“I don’t think any team can really pre­pare for us because we have so many dif­fer­ent play­ers that can con­tribute at any given time,” said Dorow.

Ferris lost 74–65 to Tiffin University on Saturday, their sec­ond home loss of the sea­son. The team led by two at half­time and built a 13-point lead eight min­utes into the sec­ond half.

Tiffin ral­lied for a 15–0 run to erase the Bulldog lead and swung momen­tum back in favor of the Dragons.

Tied at 57, Tiffin hit back-to-back three-pointers to take a six-point lead and Ferris never recov­ered. Tiffin made eight free-throws over the final 3:48 to seal the vic­tory. Dorow said the team needs to work on con­tain­ing pen­e­tra­tion and reduc­ing turnovers.

“We didn’t attack as hard as Tiffin did, so I have to give them credit for that,” said Dorow.

Ferris com­mit­ted 11 of the game’s final 12 fouls and Tiffin made 24 of its 29 free-throw attempts in the game. Ferris shot 50 per­cent from the char­ity stripe, mak­ing seven of 14 attempts. In addi­tion, the Bulldogs turned the ball over 21 times, while forc­ing only nine Dragon turnovers.

Freshman Katy Fox had a career high 11 points, and added four rebounds for the Bulldogs. Fox had aver­aged just three points and 1.8 rebounds per game enter­ing Saturday’s con­test. Dorow was pleased with Fox’s effort and said she con­tin­ues to improve.

“She’s get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter every day and she is one of the hard­est work­ers we have,” said Dorow.

The Bulldogs fell to 1–2 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) and 2–4 over­all this sea­son fol­low­ing the games this weekend.

Ferris hits the road this week for its first road con­fer­ence con­tests. The Bulldogs play the 5–1 Findlay Oilers tomor­row and then the 2–4 Hillsdale Chargers on Saturday. Findlay lost its first game of the sea­son on Dec. 5 to Lake Superior State. Hillsdale is 2–0 in the GLIAC this sea­son and Findlay
is 1–1.