January 15th, 2020…WELLAND – The Niagara Knights women's basketball team was handed their ninth loss of the season last night at the hands of the Sheridan Bruins.
With the loss, the Knights drop to 1-9 this season, while the Bruins improved to 6-4.
Despite the Knights struggle to find the win column this season, head coach Chris Rao has made strides with his young team in his first Ontario Colleges Athletic Association season.
A roster made up of primarily first year players (9), Rao's work has been cut out for him since the start of the season in a notoriously tough west division. In their home opening game against Sheridan Nov 1st, the Knights suffered a 25-point loss to the Bruins. Fast forward three months later, Niagara started off the second half of the season in a close loss to Conestoga on Jan 10th, 73-69, and again against the Bruins 61-54.
"We played very hard against a competitive Sheridan team," said Rao. Ultimately it came down to turnovers, as it did against Conestoga last week, and we need to do a better job of taking care of the ball."
Last night's tilt with the Bruins saw three players lead the way on the scoreboard; Jessyka Maliksi with 19, while Kaisen MacKinnon and Leanne Dekorte each contributed 10. DeKorte also came up big of the Knights on the boards with 13 rebounds, while Terin Hultink pulled down a season high 21.
"We got some excellent performances and those are the types of things we can build on as we move into the last half of the season."
Next up the Knights will return home to face Lambton College (7-4) January 25th at 2:00 P.M.
