TC women soar with two wins

Taylor Janzen aims for two in the second half against Bethany Wednesday. Janzen scored four points and grabbed 10 rebounds.The Tabor College women enjoyed two blowout victories last week to improve to 9-3 in the KCAC, 14-8 overall. The Bluejays received votes in the latest Coaches? Top 25 Poll.

Bethel?Tabor baskets seemed to fall with ease in Saturday?s 83-62 victory at Bethel.

The Bluejays shot 66.7 percent from the field (18-27) in the first half, including 87.5 percent from behind the arc (7-8), and finished the evening shooting 62 percent from the field (31-50) including 63.2 percent from behind the arc (12-19).

?Obviously, we shot extremely well,? coach Shawn Reed said. ?I thought we shared the basketball well, got the ball moving, and didn?t stay stagnant as much.

?I thought all those were contributing factors to us getting good shots. I thought we pushed the ball well, too.?

Tonisha Dean and Janelle Rust combined for Tabor?s first 14 points, but the Threshers matched the Bluejays basket-for-basket until Dean followed two Tena Loewen baskets with a three-pointer for a 21-14 lead.

The lead was 26-21 when Loewen scored at 10:36, and neither team scored for the next three minutes. Loewen broke the drought with a second-chance basket and Rust followed with a three-pointer for a 31-21 Tabor margin.

Tonisha Dean shoots for two in the first half at Bethel Saturday. Dean led all scorers with 19 points in Tabor?s 83-62 victory. Dean scored nine points against Bethany Wednesday. The Bluejays? largest lead of the half was 38-25, when Dean scored a second-chance basket after Kaleigh Troxell drained a three-pointer. The half ended with Tabor in front, 45-34.

The Bluejays burst out of the locker room with a 17-5 run after Mallory Zuercher made a three with 16:14 left to play. Tabor did not score again until the 10:43 mark when Nikki Lewis nailed a three for a 65-43 score.

The margin remained at 20 or more points the rest of the game. The Bluejays led 82-52 with 3:56 to play on the way to the 21-point win.

Dean led all scorers with 19 points. Rust added 16, Zuercher 12 and Troxell 11. Lewis had 12 assists.

Bethany?Tabor led from start to finish Wednesday to blow out Bethany, 74-43. Despite the final score, coach Shawn Reed found room for improvement.

Reed praised his team?s effort on the glass. Tabor grabbed 48 rebounds (24 offensive, 24 defensive), which helped a struggling Bluejay offense in the first half. Tabor shot 33.3 percent from the field (12-36), including 23.1 percent from behind the arc (3-13).

?I think we got good shots in the first half, but I don?t think we were ready to shoot, especially from the three-point line,? Reed said.

Reed was not pleased with his team?s 17 turnovers but said rebounding compensated for it.

When the Swedes managed only a three-pointer and a free throw for more than the first eight minutes of the game, Tabor secured a 15-4 advantage after Taylor Janzen scored at 12:40.

Although Bethany cut the margin to nine, Janelle Rust and Mallory Zuercher combined for the next six points for a 21-6 score.

Tabor maintained a double-digit advantage the duration of the game. The Bluejays? largest lead was 36-12. Bethany scored the last six points for a 36-18 halftime score.

?I was pretty pleased with the first half defensively, except we didn?t finish the first half well at either end of the floor,? Reed said. ?But then in the second half, we came out with a lot of energy, and we went man, and I thought we got some things going.?

Tabor scored 10 unanswered points out of the break to lead, 46-18, when Zuercher scored at 17:22.

Dean, Rust and Kaleigh Troxell later combined for nine straight points for a 61-26 score. Tabor?s largest lead was 38.

Fifteen Bluejays saw playing time in the 31-point win.

?We got to play everybody tonight, which is good, but I wasn?t happy with how everybody played,? Reed said. ?We didn?t score in the last four or five minutes and we had opportunities to.?

Reed said it?s all about improvement, no matter the score.

?People will probably look at a score like that and think, ?Why would you nitpick about those things when you win by 31 points,? but for us, it?s about trying to get better,? he said. ?We only have so many games left this year, and we can?t squander any opportunities to get better.

?At the same time, it?s a win. Everybody got to play, and nobody got injured, and so that was a positive.?

Tabor concluded the game with 37.7 percent shooting (26-69), including 31.8 percent from behind the arc (7-22). Rust scored a game-high 19 points. Zuercher added 13. Nikki Lewis contributed 10 assists, and Janzen grabbed 10 rebounds.

Coming?Tabor will play at Sterling (5-7, 9-13) Thursday at 6 p.m. and will travel to McPherson (4-8, 8-16) Saturday for a 5 p.m. contest.

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