Women’s basketball looks ahead to a tough matchup tomorrow at Colby, aiming to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Polar Bears had a successful 4-0 start to kick off winter break but fell apart the second half, dropping four straight conference games.
Head Coach Adrienne Shibles and captain Kaitlin Donahoe ’13 cited lack of intensity and confidence as the reason behind the team’s failure.
“We took a few steps back and got a little intimidated by our opponents,” said Donahoe. “We just weren’t able to put together a 40-minute game, we would have one good half every game but slide in the other half.”
“We can’t just play 20 minutes and expect to win games,” said Shibles.
The Polar Bears had mixed success in close games over the break, battling from behind to beat Emmanuel College 65-63 and then losing to Bates 67-64 and Trinity 46-43.
“We all thought we were going to win [against Trinity] and they made a few shots down the stretch,” said Shibles.
Shibles foresees a challenging path ahead for her team, with the relative parity in the conference. However, she said she believes Bowdoin “absolutely” has a shot in the playoffs with five conference games left.
The Polar Bears won their most recent match against Maine Maritime Academy on Tuesday. The win marked Shibles’ 100th win for the College.
“We got a hint about it right before the game,” said Donahoe. “She didn’t have any idea about it, so it was a nice surprise for her.”
“It’s nice, but I was much more excited about the great team win,” said Shibles. “It was wonderful to see everyone play with such intensity and I considered that to be much more gratifying than what I consider to be reaching an arbitrary milestone.”
Shibles said that was the team’s first 40 minute performance perhaps all season. She attributes the intensity spike to the team’s reflective conversations the previous weekend.
“They were feeling a lot of pressure about these conference games. We [the coaching staff] emphasized that we just want their best effort, whether it’s a win or a loss, we just want to see intense, physical, gritty basketball for 40 minutes.”
Although the Polar Bears came out on top in their previous non-conference meeting against Colby, the two rivals have similar records and the Mules will have home court advantage.
“They have an incredible senior leader Diana Manduca, they’re shooting exceptionally well in their own gym, and last night they broke a school record for most three pointers scored in a game,” said Shibles.
With five NESCAC games left Donahoe put it simply, “we need this win.”
This season the young Polar Bears find themselves in the position of the underdog rather than the frontrunner.
“We have something special to bring to the rest of this season, we’re in the position to surprise a lot of people which normally is not the case,” said Donahoe.