Mercer struggles in win over Kennesaw State

Mercer women’s head coach Susie Gardner said she didn’t recognize the Bears team that took the court Saturday at Hawkins Arena.

And she didn’t particularly like the team she saw.

But the Bears still did enough to pull out a 61-46 win over Kennesaw State to improve to 7-1. Mercer has won six straight games, while Kennesaw State dropped to 1-6.

Mercer shot just 33.9 percent from the floor (21-of-62) and 5-of-18 on 3-pointers while finishing with 14 turnovers.

Three who mattered

Amanda Thompson: The sophomore continued to do the dirty work for the Bears, finishing with 16 rebounds and 12 points. Thompson hit 5-of-10 from the floor.

Linnea Rosendal: Rosendal hit all five of the Bears’ 3-pointers, making 5-of-12 from behind the line to finish with 15 points.

Sydni Means: The junior point guard scored 13 points and had seven assists and three steals.

Turning point

Mercer trailed 10-4 after the first quarter but then outscored the Owls 16-8 in the second and 24-7 in the third to gain control. The Bears shot 11-of-20 in the third but only 10-of-42 the rest of the game.

Observations

A struggle early: Mercer shot 1-of-10 in the first quarter and had 10 turnovers.

Strong on defense: While the offense struggled early and often, the Mercer defense held Kennesaw State to 35.1 percent (20-of-57) shooting.

Worth mentioning

Strong start: Mercer’s 7-1 start is the program’s best since opening 8-1 in 1980-81.

They said it

Mercer head coach Susie Gardner on the first quarter: “We had 10 turnovers in the first quarter, and we don’t always have 10 turnovers in the game. We weren’t getting shots up. We shot 1-for-10, 10 percent, which is not us. We’re a really good offensive team, and I’m not exactly sure what team that was that showed up (Saturday), but it wasn’t the normal us.”

Gardner on moving forward: “I’m just hopefully going to say it’s a bad day. We’ve played really well this year. Basketball’s a long season. I don’t know if they were ready mentally. I’m not exactly sure. But we’ve had a conversation about it. We’ve talked obviously already right now. We’ve got good leadership on this team with Amanda, Kahlia (Lawrence) and Sydni, so hopefully, they can, internally, talk to each other. It doesn’t always have to come from the coach’s mouth. Sometimes it needs to come from within that locker room.”

What’s next?

Mercer travels to Georgia Tech at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

This story was originally published December 3, 2016 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Mercer struggles in win over Kennesaw State."