LORETTO, Pa. – The Red Flash tallied just seven points in the opening quarter and could never recover, as St. Francis fell to Army West Point 82-50 in non-conference women’s basketball action at DeGol Arena Saturday afternoon.
First-year coach Chynna Bozeman’s squad has struggled getting out of the gate so far in the campaign, as the Red Flash dropped their sixth consecutive game to start the season.
“We know that they are a very disciplined team, and so that challenged us to try to be disciplined today,” Bozeman said. “There were some areas where we were, and there were some areas where we weren’t. But overall, I thought we battled with a really big team.”
Army controlled the leverage in the game right from the opening basket, quickly building an 11-5 advantage.
After Sajol Thornhill’s layup cut the deficit to four, the Red Flash were held scoreless over an 8-minute, 45-second span from the first to the second quarter.
St. Francis missed all nine of its shot attempts and turned the ball over six times during the stretch, as Army increased its lead to 24-7 and never looked back.
“Army is a tough team,” Bozeman said. “They’re not going to make very many mistakes. They’re going to make reads, they’re gonna screen you, cut back defensively on you, and they’re going to knock down some shots. So, really, it’s just about keeping your composure when teams go on those runs.”
Through six games, the Red Flash have averaged 13.6 points in the first quarter, while allowing 20.8 per contest.
St. Francis has trailed after one frame in all six of its contests, and despite multiple late comeback attempts, have been unable to dig itself out of the early hole.
“Every game is a little bit different, and I think our girls are just trying to figure out the game as it comes to them,” Bozeman said. “When we face these teams and they seem to have size, you don’t know what it looks like really until it walks on the court. It’s just something we have to work on.”
The Red Flash are also on a downward trend offensively, with their point total dropping each game since scoring a season-high 73 in a loss to La Salle Nov. 8.
St. Francis posted a 28 percent tally from the floor in Saturday’s contest, going 15-for-53. Free throws provided a big part of the offensive production for the Red Flash, who were 15 of 19 at the stripe.
In the fourth quarter, the Red Flash shot just 1-for-14 from the floor, but were 7 of 10 on free throws.
Army (5-1) outscored St. Francis 21-10 in the final frame to pull away.
“They really took it to us inside today,” Bozeman said of Army’s 42 points in the paint. “They have size, and they have length. That was a really big advantage for them. Rebounding is something that hurt us. It’s something that we pride ourselves in and we want to start to make noise in the rebounding category, so that’s something that I’ll also look at.”
Kya Smith led the Black Knights with a game-high 15 points and nine rebounds. Army had four players in double-figures.
Cassandra Hawthorne was the lone Red Flash player in double-figures with 12 points.
St. Francis will travel to Iona for a two-day tournament beginning Nov. 28.
“We need some rest and then some mental recharge,” Bozeman said. “We just took four games head-on. That felt like back-to-backs for us.
“So we’re gonna get rest, and then we’re gonna go look at our film and look at how we can tighten up some things on defense and then really get flowing on offense.”
