Lady Tigers struggle in 72-54 loss to No. 8-ranked Dodge City

Shooting a season-low 23 percent from the floor, the Cowley College women's basketball team suffered a 72-54 loss to No. 6-ranked Dodge City on Tuesday night inside W.S. Scott Auditorium.

Cowley has dropped back-to-back home games after opening the season with six straight wins. The Lady Tigers are now 6-2 overall and 1-2 in the Jayhawk Conference.

The Conquistadors started with three players 6'foot or taller and made Cowley shoot the majority of its shots from long range, while the Lady Tigers made only 7-of-45 three-point attempts.

Despite making only 2-of-18 shot attempts in the opening quarter, Cowley trailed only 12-6 thanks to forcing Dodge City into 12 turnovers.

Points continued to be hard to come by for the Lady Tigers in the second quarter as Dodge City's lead grew to 32-9 before Cowley closed the half on a 7-0 run to trail 32-16 at the end of the first half.

The Conquistadors scored the first nine points of the second half and took a commanding 55-34 lead into the final quarter of play.

Cowley could not get closer than within 15 points of the Conquistadors in the fourth quarter as Dodge City went on to the 18-point road win.

Dodge City improves its record to 8-1 overall and 3-0 in the conference.

Shorna Preston led five Conquistadors in double figures with 10 points and 17 rebounds and Dodge City out-rebounded Cowley 59-23.

Elysa Martinez (16 points), Jaiden Smith (12 points), and Georgia Knight (10 points) combined to score 38 points on 14-of-35 shooting, while the rest of the Lady Tigers combined to make only 4-of-39 shots from the floor.

Cowley will travel to Great Bend, KS, to take on Barton Community College (4-5) on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The Cougars are in search of their first conference win after dropping their first three conference games by an average of 23 points per game.

The box score can be found at https://www.cowleytigers.com/sports/wbkb/2024-25/boxscores/20241126_be5a.xml?view=boxscore