SPRING ARBOR, MI – The Lady Cougars suffered their first loss of the season at the hands of the visiting Cornerstone Golden Eagles 61-50. Except for about an eight minute stretch in the second half, the Cougars held their own against a bigger and more experienced Golden Eagle squad.
The first half was evenly played with Spring Arbor holding a one point advantage 25-24 after 20 minutes. Cornerstone held a slight advantage on the boards with a 26-19 edge there, but the Cougars shot the ball better from the outside hitting 7-15 from beyond the arc.
The difference in the ball game came at about the 13:30 mark, in the second half, with Spring Arbor leading 32-29. The Cougars shooting went cold, and the ball got a little slippery for Spring Arbor as eight minutes later, Cornerstone held a 53-39 lead (24-7 run) over SAU. During that span, Spring Arbor would turn the ball over to Cornerstone six times.
Jessica Garrison and Aimee Konkel would both hit big 3-pointers down the stretch, but it wouldn't be enough to outscore Cornerstone as time wound down.
Audra Norris led Spring Arbor with 11 points and Shelby Peterson added nine for the Cougars. Carlie Newman, who ran into foul trouble early chipped in seven points and pulled down five rebounds before fouling out of the game.
"I thought our effort was good tonight, but our youth was exposed a little bit," said Coach Ryan Frost. "They're a seasoned team and have a really solid player in Robyn Veltkamp who hit some really tough shot in the run that they made that put it out of reach for us. But I thought we fought hard and battle back from that. We have to bounce back quickly from this as we get back on the floor on Tuesday against Madonna and see if we can't get back on the right track."
VeltKamp led all scorers in the game with 23 points and seven rebounds.
The Cougars are in the middle of a six game home stand and as Frost mentioned will play Madonna University on Tuesday night on Bockwitz Court. The Ladies will start the evening in a rare Cougar double-header starting at 5:00 with the men playing Siena Heights University right afterwards.
