The Pioneers had a good week. On Wednesday we notched our fifth win of the season against a much-improved Knox team. Currently Knox is one step higher than the Pioneers in the conference ranking, so the win was an important one. We had multiple players with double digit points and many others contributing with assistants and rebounds.
Last night we traveled to Jacksonville, IL to face Illinois College, a team which handed us a devastating loss early in January. This game was senior night for the Lady Blues and one of their final home games. The contest was tight the entire first half with IC entering half time with a four point lead. The second half began with a great run from our players. Back and forth the game went until it was tied at 60-60 with about four minutes to go. We had a series of turnovers and missed shots and all of a sudden we were down by five. The rest of game we tried to play catch up. With IC making almost all their free-throws we were unable to make up the difference.
Both the Knox game and the IC game were close for forty minutes. Each coming down to a series of crucial plays at crucial moments in the game. At Knox, those moments went in our favor, at Illinois College they didn't. It is exciting to be this close to winning, but also extremely frustrating. Being this close and not succeeding can be a serious hurdle to overcoming the mental challenges to performing under pressure. Athletes who have experienced victory repeatedly know how to play in close games and win. Our athletes have fewer of those experiences and therefore we are frequently playing in uncharted territory. And although we often spend time practicing in high pressure situation, you can't practice experience. We are fortunate to have some many young athletes seeing time in these close games. I am hopeful that their experiences now will translate into hard-fought victories in the future.
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