After a 4-2 start to the month of January, the Rowan women’s basketball team has dropped two straight after a 72-58 defeat to the New Jersey City University (NJCU) Gothic Knights on Saturday, Jan. 25 at Esbjornson Gymnasium.

The Gothic Knights offense was clicking on all cylinders during today’s game, as their 72 points was 16 over their season average of 56 points per game. They shot 42 percent from the field, 31 percent from three, and made all eight of their free throws. Head coach Kate Pearson gave kudos to the offense of NJCU. 

“Today they shot really well, if you look at statistics that’s generally not their strength but today it was so they get credit for knocking those down,” Pearson said. “We just need to have a little bit more focus and intensity right from the get-go.”

At times this game was close. The first quarter ended 18-16 in favor of NJCU and the Profs were only down eight at the break, but the second half is when the Gothic Knights took charge. The 21 turnovers that the NJCU defense forced made life hard for the Profs. 

“Too many long passes and allowing selves to get trapped,” Pearson said. “This [full-court] press was very effective…Some of the players aren’t used to handling [the ball] as much, so we have to keep giving them experience and find a way to slow ourselves down to take care of the ball better.” 

The Profs leading scorer, senior guard Kate Herlihy struggled on the day, only going 6-19 from the field with eight turnovers, to summarize the day. But it wasn’t just Herlihy that struggled; the whole team did shooting-wise, as they shot just 38 percent from the field and 20 percent from three-point range. 

“I think the turnovers came from not being locked in or focused mentally,” Herlihy said. “There’s no excuse for having eight turnovers other than it was completely on myself not being 100% focused.”

It was not all doom and gloom for the Profs. Sophomore Haley Selmer totaled a game-high 16 points on 6-10 shooting, in just 19 minutes off the bench. She also had some words on how to keep this good performance rolling into the next couple of games.

“Today, I let loose, locked in, and played how I needed to play. Play good defense, hustle, and try to put all the pieces together,” Selmer said. 

The Profs need to get back to winning ways and Selmer told us some things to remember so this team can rattle off some wins with seven games to go before the NJAC tournament starts. 

With only a handful of games left in the season, Selmer talked about some things to remember as the team draws closer to the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) tournament.

“Not playing into the strengths of our opponent and not letting them get in our head,” Selmer said. “Just playing our games, slowing ourselves down, and just not letting our opponent get to us.” 

Despite the outcome of the game, Herlihy did find positives from the team’s most recent loss. 

“The most positive takeaway from this game is seeing how upset and frustrated we all were after the loss,” Herlihy said. “We all know how much better we can and usually do play, and I think this game showed us what we need to work on physically and mentally to level up for the second half of this season.” 

The Profs will try to turn negatives into positives going into their next game on Wednesday, Jan. 29 as Rowan takes on Rutgers-Camden in Camden. There is one thing that Herlihy wants us to know about this team. 

“We have a great group of girls and each person brings something special individually, when we all click together we really are unstoppable,” said Herlihy. 

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