Katie Murphy sets new career highs In rebounds, points in loss to Murray State

On a night where the rest of her team shot just 22 percent from the floor, sophomore Katie Murphy kept the Ball State women’s basketball team in the game as she scored a career-high 20 points in Thursday night’s 63-53 loss to Murray State.

“I think she played her tail off,” Ball State coach Brady Sallee said. “Her effort level was through the roof. The kid played like she cared. She was pretty good, probably the best player on the floor tonight. She affected the game in a lot of different ways.”

Murphy did most of her damage from the free-throw line, scoring eight points from the charity stripe. Murphy also added 14 rebounds, tying her career-high in boards, a mark that she set just three games ago against IPFW.

She has now scored double-digit points in her last four games.

Ball State went into halftime with a 33-22 deficit as Murray State ended the half on a 13-2 run.

Murphy and the Cardinals out-rebounded Murray State 49-35.

Sallee went on to use Murphy as an example for the rest of the team.

“I was really proud of her effort. Now, if some other ones can feed off of that and play with the same kind of enthusiasm and energy and effort, then maybe we can get this thing going a little bit,” Sallee said.

Holding a 10-point lead with 15:44 remaining in the game, the Racers scored nine straight to step on the throat of the Cardinals. Ball State never got within nine after that point.

As a team, Ball State shot 27.7 percent from the field, compared to Murray State’s 41.4 percent.

It’s frustrating,” Sallee said. “It’s frustrating for the kids. I think we’re getting a lot of good looks. The shots aren’t dropping.”

Sallee admitted the team’s low shooting percentage is “making it tough to win games,” but also said the only thing to do about it is to practice shooting.

After all of the talk of Mariah Robinson, Murray State’s leading scorer, it was the Racers’ freshman guard Erika Sisk who lead the game in points. Sisk scored 26 on 10-of-14 shooting, and added six more from the free-throw line.

Robinson did find her place statistically in the game. She lead Murray State in rebounds with eight.

Ball State’s junior guard Lindsey Wellman didn’t make the road trip south with the rest of the team. Sallee said she is battling injuries at this point.

Ball State committed 25 turnovers, one shy of its season-high. Murray State scored 23 points off the turnovers.

“It was team-wide,” Sallee said. “We were just sloppy with the ball … There were possessions where they out-hustled us to loose balls. There were possessions where they just took it from us. A lot of them were effort related. I don’t know that we put our best effort out there tonight.”