December 10, 2021

Women’s Basketball Team Continues Win Streak to Five Games

Wyatt Gatewood

The Manchester women’s basketball team just recently had a big win over Earlham College last weekend. The final score of the game was 67-49 with the team scoring a whopping 47 points in the 3rd and 4th quarters alone. This was the Lady Spartans’ fifth win in a row this 2021-22 season. Now the women have a week off until they will welcome Franklin College to the Stauffer-Wolfe Arena on December 11.

Senior Miranda Bieghler led the second half run. Bieghler also led the game in scoring for the Spartans. She had a career high 21 points and was perfect from behind the 3-point arch.

“We have been working really hard at practice,” Bieghler said. “The team responded great. Going into half time, we knew that we were going to have to perform a lot better than what we did in the first two quarters. I think we showed a lot of heart coming back out, and performing the way that we did. So now we need to learn from our mistakes, and not start off the game slow.”

Bieghler was not the only Lady Spartan to contribute to the big second half. Macy Miller and Bridget Nash were also in double figures for the game. Miller recorded a double-double that makes it her third of the year. Miller finished the game with 16 points and a career high 13 rebounds. As a team the Spartans shot 27-37 (73 percent) from the free throw line. On defense the Lady Spartans forced Earlham to 20 turnovers. They also held Earlham to 32 percent from the field.

“I was really focused and ready for this game,” Miller said. “The team has really come together after our first two games. We can’t let these wins get to our head though we need to keep working to get better. It is still very early in the season so the best thing for us is to keep games in the past when they are over.”

Senior Bridget Nash recorded 11 points adding to the Lady Spartans total for the game. Nash also had a total of 3 rebounds and 1 assist for this game against the Earlham Quakers. “Our game performance shows how hard we as a team work at practice,” Nash said “Our defense really helped out a bunch. We forced a lot of turnovers and we held Earlham shooting percentage low. If we can keep our intensity up at practice, and execute in the games then we are going to be okay. We just can’t lose focus on the work that still needs done.”

Bieghler, Miller and Nash are all seniors on the team. They all seem very focused on what they need to do to keep winning. Working hard and staying focused seems to be the key to success for the Lady Spartans. It also sounded like the rest of the team had bought into this season. It seems like the Lady Spartans are ready and prepared to have a great season.