Women’s basketball team locks sixth seed in MAC tournament

The CMU women’s basketball team can improve on its road woes at 7 p.m. Tuesday when it travels to Muncie, Ind., to play Ball State.

CMU (11-16, 8-7 Mid-American Conference) is 2-13 away from Rose Arena this season and coming off a 64-56 loss against Western Michigan in Kalamazoo on Saturday.

Despite the loss, CMU has locked up the sixth seed in the MAC Tournament and hosts a first-round game
March 7.

“We just put ourselves in a really tough situation,” said coach Sue Guevara. “We have reverse momentum going on. There’s no guarantee we’re going to win our first-round game at Rose.”

To make matters worse, CMU might be without senior forward Britni Houghton, who suffered a knee injury late last week in practice. Houghton surpassed Carla Sterk for second all-time in scoring at CMU on Saturday (1,545 points).

“I don’t know if we’re going to have her because her knee’s sore,” Guevara said.

Ball State (11-16, 6-9 MAC) comes off a 62-48 loss Saturday against West Division leader Toledo. After having a six-game losing streak toward the end of January and into February, the Cardinals won three of four before Saturday’s loss.

CMU’s previous meeting with Ball State, an 87-80 win Jan. 12, proved to be a turning point in the team’s season. The win not only snapped a four-game losing skid, but sparked a four-game winning streak that included the Chippewas’ last road win, 89-74 against Northern Illinois on Jan. 20 in DeKalb, Ill.

Western woes

Like the team’s loss Wednesday against Toledo, turnovers and an inability to score down the stretch cost CMU the game Saturday at Western Michigan.

While the turnover battle was fairly close — CMU committed 22 turnovers to WMU’s 17 — it was the points that came from them that made all the difference. The Broncos got 23 points off turnovers, including several key buckets late in the second half, to eight for CMU.

“When we play Toledo, Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green, I always tell the kids to respect everyone and fear no one,” Guevara said. “You can be beaten on every day and we can beat anyone on every day. And I don’t think we respected Western.”

WMU (8-20, 3-12 MAC) shot 41.7 percent from the field to 40.4 for CMU.

Besides 16 points from junior guard Shonda Long, CMU received little production from the rest of the team.
Junior forward Kaihla Szunko scored six points in 31 minutes, while Houghton had six points in 23 minutes.

“When they deny two of your top three (scorers), you need production from your bench,” Guevara said. “And we just didn’t get it.

“It’s not like Skylar Miller’s got to give us 38 points, but she’s got to give us something when she penetrates into the paint,” Guevara said. “And Laura Baker’s got to give us something — layups and free throws.”