The Berkeley College women's basketball team dropped its second consecutive contest to start the 2017-2018 season, falling to the Builders of the Apprentice School by a score of 75-51 in a contest that took place on the campus of SUNY-Delhi. The Knights are now 0-2, while the Builders picked up their first win on the season, improving their record to 1-2. Following the game, Head Coach Alex Kuchar spoke.
"We didn't put forth the strongest effort this afternoon," Kuchar said. "Obviously, coming back 15 hours after last night's game finalized, we were a step slow out of the gate. I was proud of the way we hung in there late in the first quarter, but we struggled in the second quarter, and never really recovered from that. We have some very good players on this team, so I'm very optimistic of what we can accomplish this season despite not being able to get a victory this weekend. We'll take the next two weeks to regroup, and then we'll turn our focus to USMMA King's Point on December 2."
Berkeley College's only advantage of the game was a short-lived one – as Ebony Lofton drained a shot from the charity stripe to give the Knights a 9-8 lead. A 10-1 apprentice school run over the ensuing 2:13 put the Builders up by a score of 18-10. That aforementioned run included a converted Sabre Clegg jumper, a pair of freebees by Latrice Washington, two consecutive made shots by Ylexzis Traeger, and a basket by Quanisha Bruce. The Knights did finish the first quarter on a 6-1 run to close to within 19-16 as time expired on the opening period.
In the second quarter, the Apprentice School started to put some distance between itself and Berkeley College, gradually building its lead as the second period progressed. The Builders outscored the Knights 20-8 in the second stanza, and took a 39-24 lead into the locker room at halftime. Berkeley College struggled mightily in the second, hitting on just two of its 11 shots while turning the ball over 12 times.
The Apprentice School continued to keep the pressure on Berkeley College all throughout the second half, eventually going on to win the game by 24 points.
Despite the loss for Berkeley College, Ayana Ratliff put forth her second consecutive dazzling performance, as he connected on 10 of her 22 shots from the floor while dropping-in a game-high 33 points. She also snatched a team-high eight rebounds, tallied a team-best five steals, and swatted two shots. Crystal Miller contributed seven points, six rebounds, and a pair of assists, and Jaiyamoira Myers added six points and eight rebounds.
In the victory for the Builders, it was Traeger leading the way for her squad, scoring a team-high 20 points while snatching a game-best 13 rebounds. Washington contributed 18 points, eight rebounds, two assists, and two steals, and Tyne Innocent added 11 points.
The rebounding and turnover departments turned out to be very troublesome for the Knights in this contest. The Apprentice School out-rebounded the Knights by a whopping margin of 60-39, and Berkeley College committed 36 turnovers compared to 22 for the opposition.
The Knights will now be off for the rest of November, and will return to action on Saturday, December 2, as Berkeley College will take on USMMA King's Point. Game-time for that contest will take place at 1:00pm.
