![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/HDP_9163-1-300x199.jpg\" "\\"HDP_9163")
The FGCU women’s basketball team had a choice in their 62-48 loss at the Alico Arena\u00a0on Saturday\u00a0night to an aggressive Arkansas State team according to Eagles head coach Karl Smesko. Needless to say,\u00a0he was not happy with the choice his team made.<\/p>\n
“When a team is more aggressive than you, you have two choices,” Smesko said. “You can match it or you can get beat.”<\/p>\n
In a game that saw the lead change six times. the Red Wolves (4-1) took the lead for good late in the third quarter, when Khadi Brown-Haywood hit her only three pointer of the game to put Arkansas Sate up 41-39, shortly after FGCU’s Kaneisha Atwater, who led the Eagles with 11 points, committed her fourth foul but stayed in the game. Arkansas State then closed out the quarter on a 7-2 run to lead 48-41.<\/p>\n
After scoring the first four points to start the fourth quarter, Arkansas State\u00a0took a 52-41 lead, and shortly thereafter Atwater was out of the game with her fifth foul. A free throw then added a point to the Red Wolves’ advantage before FGCU (3-3) scored the next five points on Jamie Gluesing’s basket and Stephanie Haas’s 3-point play to cut the margin to 53-46 near the midway point of the quarter.<\/p>\n
That would be the closest the Eagles could get though, who were once again playing without the injured Atlantic Sun Player of the Year Whitney Knight.<\/p>\n
“We were playing shorthanded,” Smesko said, referring to not only to Knight being out, but not having Atwater for the late part of\u00a0Saturday’s\u00a0game. “That makes it even harder to score.”<\/p>\n
Atwater felt she could have made a difference.<\/p>\n
“I was disappointed not being out there,” the senior guard from Fort Pierce, FL said. “I could have helped the team somehow. If I wasn’t scoring I could have been rebounding.”<\/p>\n
Smesko said though that it was a team loss for the Eagles, who shot 3 for 23 from 3-pont territory.<\/p>\n
“(Arkansas State) was more aggressive by far,” he said. “They were smart and aggressive in the second half and soundly beat us on the boards in the second half (21-13). That may have led to some of their scoring chances. You won’t beat many people by shooting 3 for 23.<\/p>\n
“We were open we just missed shots. We didn’t screen very well. We need to try to get them more interested (in screening). We didn’t help one another out.”<\/p>\n
Atwater shared her coach’s thoughts.<\/p>\n
“We were just running around,” she said.<\/p>\n
Atwater is accepting though of her role in trying to turn things around.<\/p>\n
“Losses will happen,” she said. “It will be a matter of leadership in how we respond.”<\/p>\n
NOTES:<\/strong>\u00a0Gluesing set a career high in rebounds with nine. Though school was not in session over the holiday weekend, the attendance for the game was still 1280.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bill Levy The FGCU women’s basketball team had a choice in their 62-48 loss at the Alico Arena\u00a0on Saturday\u00a0night to an aggressive Arkansas State team according to Eagles head… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37846"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}