Despite the Loyola women’s basketball team’s ability to hold American University below its season scoring average, coach Joe Logan said it best: “44 points isn’t enough points to win in this league.”

 
Loyola hosted first-place American in a conference battle last Wednesday night and held the second-highest scoring Patriot League team to one of its lowest outputs of the season at just 55 points, but poor shooting by the Greyhounds handed them the 55-44 loss and dropped them to 6-15 overall and 4-7 in Patriot League play.
 

The Greyhounds shot just 26-percent from the floor compared to the Eagles’ 44-percent. American had three players reach double-digits in scoring and two players with double-doubles. Eagles senior Jen Dumiak, who is third in the league in scoring, finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds, while Michelle Holmes had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Arron Zimmerman also chipped in 14 points for American.
 

Loyola relied on Colleen Marshall, who finished with 13 points, and Jeneh Perry, who had 12, but the team just didn’t see enough offense elsewhere to pull off the win.
 

“We didn’t make enough shots,” Logan said. “We got 65 shots to their 44, but we didn’t make enough. The positive is we’re getting those shots, we just have to knock them down.”
 

The Eagles scored on their first possession of the game with a basket from Holmes but Loyola held them without a score for the next seven minutes. The Greyhounds played both strong defense and offense to open the game, making four of their first eight shots. And they used a 10-point run to gain an eight-point lead with just over 11 minutes remaining in the first half.
 

But this game proved to be a game of runs. Dumiak led a six-point charge for the Eagles, scoring back-to-back layups, cutting the deficit to two. Marshall and Perry put Loyola back on the board with a pair of free throws from Marshall and a layup from Perry. Loyola held the lead for the next seven minutes but 10 points from Zimmerman in the final six-and-a-half minutes of the first half gave the Eagles a 23-22 lead at halftime.
 

In the first half, Loyola forced eight turnovers and recorded 10 points off American’s mistakes. Both teams grabbed 17 rebounds, but Loyola had the advantage, posting 11 second-chance points to the Eagles’ five.
 

But American started to pull away in the second half. The Eagles outscored Loyola 19-4 over the first 12:50 of the second half. The Eagles led the Greyhounds by as many as 17 points, 44-27, with 7:53 left to play.
 

Loyola put together a run to cut the margin to 48-42 with two minutes on the clock; it was the first time Loyola was within single digits since the 13:07 mark. But American went on to pull away from Loyola to close out the game with an 11-point victory.
 

The Eagles led with points in the paint, 32-22 and out-rebounded the Greyhounds 43-35. Loyola was able to take advantage of American’s 20 turnovers and scored half of its points off turnovers.