TCU women’s basketball seniors gave their final bow to their home crowd during their Senior Night game against the Wildcats.
TCU (17-11, 9-8 Big 12) defeated Kansas State (16-12, 6-11 Big 12) Saturday afternoon with the final score of 67-47.
TCU head coach Raegan Pebley said this was a “great way for our seniors to have their final game.”
The Wildcats’ Ashia Woods earned the first basket of the game with a layup after winning the tip off. TCU acted quickly with a 3-pointer from Zahna Medley on their next possession and held onto the lead for the rest of the game.
Pebley said her team was focused on their defense so they could contain the efforts of Ashia Woods and Breanna Lewis.
“We focused a lot on our defense and decided to zone a zoning team,” Pebley said. “it was effective; it worked.”
Kansas State head coach Jeff Mittie said he was disappointed in the way his team played today especially with this being the second game in a row they shot at less than 30 percent.
“We struggled bad today,” Mittie said. “We had trouble playing catch up all day.”
“For every three they made we made an air ball,” Mittie said.
Pebley said the last matchup against Kansas State included a lot of talk about going up against the program’s previous head coach Jeff Mittie. Pebley said her team was playing with too much on emotion and were “not playing to our rolls and our system.”
“We needed to learn a lot from it and we did,” Pebley said. “It was perfect.”
Pebley said others might think playing against previous head coach Mittie as awkward, but she said it was great for the seniors to play in front of the man who helped build them into the athletes they are today.
“Jeff helped raise these women as student athletes,” Pebley said. “I’m grateful for what he left behind.”
The TCU seniors who played on their home court for the last time today were Donielle Breaux, Chelsea Price and Natalie Ventress. All three senior players received a standing ovation from the crowd when they walked off the court in the second half.
Kansas State’s Mittie said he saw all three athletes play to their strengths during the game saying Price actively defended and Ventress kept the baskets coming.
Ventress said she could not have thought up a better ending to her last home game and put everything behind her until she could celebrate at the end of the game.
“We came into this game as another game we need to win,” Ventress said. “We didn’t let our emotions get in the way of how we played today.”
Pebley said the game was all about who could shoot from the 3-point line and the Horned Frogs proved they could by scoring at 63.2 percent. The Wildcats could not keep up with the Horned Frogs’ scoring and only shot at 15.4 percent at the 3-point line.
Junior Zahna Medley scored 16 points of TCU’s 30 earned in the first half. Twelve of those came from the 3-point line.
“I had to do my part to get the win,” Medley said.
