Coming into Saturday's game vs. Albion, Saint Mary's chance of winning the MIAA regular season championship was slim. After being handed a 92-63 defeat at the hands of Albion, those chances even smaller.
Shortly following the Belles' (14-9, 12-3) loss, rival Hope defeated Adrian 102-53, climbing to a 13-1 record in the conference. As a result, Hope also holds a one and a half game lead over Saint Mary's as the Belles go into their final game of the season next Saturday against Kalamazoo.
Despite the fact that the game was tight for the first couple minutes, Saint Mary's found themselves down 42-22 at the half after allowing Albion to put together a 20-2 run in a five minute span.
Erin Newsom once again lead the team in scoring with fifteen points and was one rebound shy of a double-double.
The story of this weekend's game, however, was poor shooting. The Belles could hardly buy a shot Saturday, shooting an abysmal 20.3 percent from the floor in the first half and marginal 37.8 percent in the second. Other Belles to reach double figures were Jessica Centa, with a season-high 13 points, and Liz Wade and Katie Rashid each contributed 11 points
From this point forward, the best Saint Mary's can hope for is a shot at conference co-champion. For this to occur they will need to beat Kalamzoo on Saturday and Hope will need to lose its last two games. While the Belles should not have a hard time defeating a winless Kalamazoo team, the odds of nationally ranked Hope losing both of its last two games are slim to none.
