Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball Sea­son Com­ing to a Close

MISHAWAKA—With about a month left in the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball sea­son, the Lady Pi­lots sit at 9-13 and 4-6 in the Cross­roads League. With a 4-6 start in the con­fer­ence, and nine wins over­all, it is the best start to a year since the 2016-17 sea­son, when the Pi­lots went 10-21 over­all, and 7-11 in the con­fer­ence. 

“I feel like we’ve im­proved a lot,” said Bethel Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball head coach, Doug Porter. “Our team is start­ing to come to­gether, and I think we are able to play more ag­gres­sively. We are also mov­ing the ball bet­ter than we did ear­lier in the sea­son. I think over the past cou­ple of games we’ve been able to score more con­sis­tently. And I think the tempo we play at has stepped up here in the past cou­ple of games.

The thing that sep­a­rates the Pi­lots is their pace of play and their abil­ity to force turnovers. The Pi­lots rank first in the na­tion in steals per game at 17.8, and they have the depth to force teams to make turnovers be­cause of how fresh they can be. The Pi­lots have fif­teen play­ers that av­er­age over nine min­utes per game. They also boast three of the top four steal-get­ters in the en­tire con­fer­ence, with Nyla Asad at 2.6 per game, Ma­iah Shel­ton at 2.3 per game, and Addi Jones at 2.1 per game.

“We play a very ag­gres­sive style any­ways,” said Porter. “So, it’s not re­ally sur­pris­ing to me that we would get a lot of steals. We lead the coun­try in steals. If we don’t get a steal, we end up giv­ing up a lot of good shots to the op­po­nent, so that’s the trade-off. But we’re okay with that if we’re forc­ing turnovers.”

Al­though the Pi­lots are still be­low .500 and fight­ing for a mid-table fin­ish in the Cross­roads League, they have a lot of room to im­prove. Eleven of the sev­en­teen play­ers cur­rently on the Pi­lots ros­ter are un­der­class­men in­clud­ing three fresh­man that have re­ally started to find their stride this sea­son. Ma­iah Shel­ton has started ten games this sea­son and av­er­ages 12.1 points per game. Addi Jones has also started ten games this sea­son and av­er­ages 5.2 points per game but has paired that with 3.4 as­sists per game. Lastly, Abby Williams has also started ten games this sea­son and av­er­ages 5.4 points per game and 5 re­bounds per game.

“They’ve been a pleas­ant sur­prise,” said Porter. “Be­ing able to con­tribute as much as they have has been nice. Ma­iah Shel­ton has had a nice start to her year. She had a ca­reer-high 26 points in her last game. Addi Jones, one of our point guards, has scored con­sis­tently, and in our last game she had eight as­sists and zero turnovers. Which is im­pres­sive for a fresh­man that has­n’t played that po­si­tion un­til this year. Abby Williams has also been a good re­bounder and de­fen­sive player for us as well. So, all three of them have done a good job.”

For more in­for­ma­tion on Bethel Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball visit https://​www.bupi­lots.com/​sport/​wom­ens-bas­ket­ball.