Just like it has the past three games, the Ball State women's basketball team fell into a lull in the second half, leading to an 82-74 loss to the Illinois State Redbirds.
The Cardinals let the Redbirds go on a 12-2 run during the second half, which gave the Redbirds a lead they would not relinquish and caused Ball State to drop its third straight contest.
"We just haven't gotten to the point of stopping people in the second half," head coach Tracy Roller said.
Ball State had similar second half instances against Cincinnati, where it lost a 14-point lead, and against Murray State, where it lost a seven-point lead. While the team did not lose a large lead this time, they still allowed a winless Illinois State team to get enough momentum and hit enough three's to get the win.
"You can't let a team have the number of threes that we let them have," Roller said.
Illinois State was led by Jaci McCormack who had a season high 22 points and fell only five points short of her career high. Her 22 points, 15 of which came from behind the arch, was only two points shy of the 24 points McCormack scored in her first three games.
It's not the first time this season the Cardinals have let an unexpected player have a career night. Against Murray State the team let Ashley Hayes score 25. Hayes had only scored seven points in her previous three games.
The Redbirds ended with 11 treys, more then half as many as the team had coming into the contest. They also converted 53 percent of the attempts from behind the arch. Ball State had only two threes and shot only 33 percent from behind the arch.
Ball State did try and mount a comeback with 4:04 remaining when they got within two off of a layup by freshman Julie DeMuth. Illinois State however hit three straight three-pointers to take a 79-68 lead that Ball State was not able to overcome.
"It really the game two free-throw box outs and three straight three's that just broke our back in the second half," Roller said.
Sophomore Becca Bajorek had a career night for the second game in a row. After pulling down a career high nine rebounds against Murray State on Sunday, Bajorek bettered that by getting 10 rebounds on Wednesday.
"She was really huge for us tonight. She got a couple big rebounds in the second half," Roller said. "Our post players played well again."
Endress led the Cardinals in scoring with a season-high 21 points and also had nine rebounds. Sophomores Kelsey Corbin and Tina Bolte and junior Raechelle Hampton all finished with double figures, with 12, 10 and 11 respectivley.
While Endress had one of the best games of the season, she was limited to only six points in the second half, but Roller was still happy with her performance.
"We couldn't get her in the mix in the end of the game," Roller said. "Kate's our go-to-player and I think she played like one tonight."
The team will hit the road again this weekend when they travel to Terre Haute to play in the Hoosier State Classic against Indiana State.
"We just can't get it together defensively and have all five kids on the same boat," Roller said. "Hopefully we're going to keep learning from these losses, because they've got to mean something."
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