Nov. 20—DANVILLE — Everything was going great for the Danville Area Community College women’s basketball team in its first four games.
The Lady Jaguars won all four games but there was one little problem — leading scorer Keiara Gregory came down with an injury in a hard-fought 59-54 win over Lincoln Trail last Friday in Springfield.
The next day, DACC saw its win streak snapped with a 73-67 set back against the College of Lake County.
“Not having (Keiara) due to injury threw the team for a little bit of a loop,” DACC coach Kyle Bent said. “We played alright, but we did some things that we normally don’t do.”
In its second game without Gregory, who was averaging 18.3 points per game, the Lady Jaguars had its second meeting in five days with the Lady Statesmen. This time around, DACC made some defensive changes and it resulted in a 84-70 triumph against Lincoln Trail on the Dick Shockey Court at the Mary Miller Center.
“Man-to-man wasn’t working at the beginning, so we switched to a zone that we don’t spend a tone of time on and we found some confidence,” said Bent, as Lincoln Trail shot just 29.6 percent from the field. “We learned that whatever we do, as long as we believe in it and go after it, we will be fine.”
The Lady Jaguars used a balanced scoring attack with five players in double figures led by sophomore Tangee Gagau with 14 to go along with seven rebounds and a game-high seven assists.
“That’s pretty good, I guess,” said Gagau after her statistics after the game. “My goal was just to be more aggressive, doing what my team needs, whether it was rebounding or assisting.”
But, it’s not only the numbers. Gagau is starting to feel comfortable in another role for the Lady Jaguars.
“I’m trying to be the vocal leader that my team needs,” she said. “If I get myself going vocally, I get my team going.”
Bent, who coached Gagau at Rodgers State in 2022-23, says that he has the strength and ability to stuff a stat sheet.
“She is building her confidence and getting back into the routine,” Benton said. “She has turned into a vocal leader for us and we are going to continue to lean on her pretty heavy.”
Gagau acknowledged that Saturday’s loss wasn’t the worst thing for the Lady Jaguars.
“It was very important to win tonight. We needed it,” she said. “But sometimes, you need those losses to help you get some wins down the road.
“We needed to push ourselves a little bit more to keep getting better.”
Joining Gagau in double figures were Ayanna Smith (12) and Victoria Gonzalez (10) from the starting lineup, while Jaydah Arrowsmith (13) and Stephanie Stephen (11) provided some offense off the bench for DACC. It was a career-high for Arrowsmith, a freshman from Oakwood.
The Lady Jaguars shot an impressive 49.2 percent on Tuesday night and they were 18-of-33 from the field in the second half, scoring 48 second-half points.
“We do a good job offensively once we the basketball to the second side,” he said. “When we get the ball moving they are pretty hard to defend.”
Bent is pleased with the 5-1 start as the Lady Jaguars play their next three games on the road before return to the Mary Miller Center on Dec. 2 for a contest with Olney Central.
