SALISBURY, N.C. — The Newberry College women’s basketball team (5-10, 1-4 South Atlantic Conference) dropped to the Piedmont Division-leading Catawba Indians 82-45. The Wolves’ nine-point victory over Catawba on Dec. 10 remains the Indians’ only SAC loss of the season.
Redshirt senior center Tyla Stolberg (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) led the Wolves in scoring with 15 points. She also recorded seven rebounds and an assist. Senior guard Holly Davies (Camberley, Surrey, England) posted nine points, five rebounds, and an assist in the contest.
The game got off to a slow start for both teams. After Catawba sank a basket in the first minute, neither team made a shot for almost two and a half minutes. Junior guard Fatih Putz evened the game up and put the Wolves on the board with a layup with seven minutes to play in the opening quarter. The Wolves forced a missed shot on the other end of the court and Davies sank two free throws to give the Wolves a two-point advantage. Catawba then reclaimed their lead quickly by sinking a three-pointer. The teams both struggled greatly and the score remained at 6-4 in favor of Catawba for almost three minutes when the Wolves were finally able make a free throw. The Indians began to outpace the Wolves as Newberry made just one field goal over the final four minutes of the quarter and entered the second quarter down 19-10.
The second quarter did not go well for the Wolves, Catawba scored the first 10 points of the quarter over the first four and a half minutes before junior guard Payton Cronen (Louisville, Ky.) sank a three-pointer to get the Wolves back on the board with just over five and a half minutes to play in the first half. Newberry scored the next four points to put them on a seven-point run, their best of the first half. Catawba answered with an eight-point run of their own that was finally broken when senior guard Giulia Bongiorno (Rome, Italy) sank a free throw with just under a minute to play in the half. The teams traded two-point plays over the final minute, Catawba on a pair of free throws and Newberry on a layup, and Wolves entered the locker room down 39-20.
The third quarter was a struggle for the Wolves as they scored their lowest quarterly points total of the night, 8, while Catawba scored their highest quarterly total, 26. The Indians put up 14 points before Newberry finally scored with just over five and a half minutes to play in the quarter. Stolberg recorded the first six of the Wolves points in the quarter, but multiple large Catawba runs meant that the Indians entered the final quarter up 65-28.
The fourth quarter was Newberry’s best offensively, scoring 17 points in the final 10 minutes. The Wolves also held the Indians to their lowest quarterly total of the night in the fourth quarter. The reserves made their presence known in the final quarter, as 11 of Newberry’s 17 points came off the bench. Still, with the southeast’s fourth ranked team outpacing the Wolves earlier in the game, Newberry fell 82-45.