On Nov. 11, Bakersfield College’s women’s basketball team suffered its fifth straight loss, losing to West Hills-Lemoore 75-61 continuing the team’s rough start to the season. This marked the team’s most competitive game of the season as they led by three heading into the fourth quarter. However, West Hills outscored BC by 17 points in the fourth quarter after trailing for most of the game. “We didn’t play defense, and their center (Michelle Brown) killed us for it. Basically, we stopped scoring and they didn’t, so we have to work on finishing games,” said head coach Paula Dahl. The lack of defense was rare for the BC team considering the Renegades are in the top eight in team defense including points, blocks and steals. The leading scorers for BC were Kennedy Nielson with 17 points and Mckaela Tyler with 13, however both combined to shoot 9-of-34 (28.7 percent) from the field. The team as a whole didn’t fair much better against the opposition as BC routinely struggled to score effectively shooting 30 percent on the game, marking the fifth straight game the team has shot less than 35 percent from the floor. Dahl, however, doesn’t see the early season scoring struggles as a problem and used a weeklong break in between games to fix certain deficiencies in the team. “I’ve never been so grateful for a break in scheduling in my life. We are looking for more consistency with player roles and that should help with the shooting struggles we’ve been having,” said Dahl. The plan for the team moving forward is to run more and to get more players involved to fix the stagnate offense. With a more focused approach in practices, Dahl is hoping her team can take a step forward in being more competitive on the court. “We’re being more competitive in our practices and trying to run a bit more. If we can’t run we can’t score period, so the focus at this point is to get our more efficient scorers involved and to sure up our point guard position,” said Dahl. The team hasn’t let the early struggles hurt them as a whole as they have come together more in recent weeks as more rolls are being defined. “They are fine, they understand what we are trying to do. We cant focus on wins and losses; it comes down to learning and improving,” said Dahl. The team will resume play after its two-weeklong hiatus as they travel to Santa Ana College for the Santa Ana College Tournament to face Moorpark College (1-5) on Dec. 3, before returning home at Taft on Dec.18.

[Photos by Joe Bergman]