The Owens Express and MU Ancilla Chargers met two weeks ago, a game that resulted in a 73-64 Charger win over the then #1 ranked NJCAA Division 3 Express. This time around, Owens took early control, starting the game on a 12-0 run and led by double figures the entire night, eventually winning the game by a score of 68-43. Big 1st and 3rd quarters set the tone each half for Owens. They led after the 1st quarter by a score of 21-9 and outscored MU Ancilla 24-9 to put the game away. The Express defense was especially dominant as they forced 21 Charger turnovers and held MU Ancilla to 30.2% shooting on the night.
The Chargers were led by Jayci Allen's double-double, her 5th in a row as she finished the night with 18 point on 6-12 shooting and 15 rebounds. Audrey Schmidt added 9 rebounds for the Chargers.
Coach Gould was very impressed with Owens on this night. "Owens was by far the better team tonight. They are the defending National Champions and they have a championship culture established. I knew they would be ready to play after we were able to knock them off a couple weeks back. Unfortunately, we were not able to match their level. They outcoached us and outplayed us for 40 minutes. I felt like we were very lethargic in warmups and that carried over into the game and that falls on me to get us more ready to play. We will take some lessons from tonight and look to bounce back on Thursday."
Gould did find some positives even in the defeat. "I thought Jayci Allen played really hard tonight and she was relentless on the boards. Having 15 rebounds is an amazing thing and she has done it multiple times this year already. I thought Nicole Swain played really hard and took her defensive assignment to heart, holding a really talented player pretty much in check for the 2nd time this year. I was also happy with Audrey who finished the night with 9 boards."
With the loss, MU Ancilla falls to 7-3 on the season and will look to bounce back on Thursday when they travel to Winona Lake, IN to take on the Grace College JV team.
