INDIANAPOLIS — Saturday was Goshen College's turn for a milestone, even as the Maple Leaf women's basketball team lost 75-51 to NAIA fifth-ranked Marian University at the Knights' Physical Education Center.
Graysen Cockerham became the 17th player in Maple Leaf history to score 1,000 career points, reaching the milestone in the second quarter to pull her team within four points before the Knights went on a second-half run to pull away. Stay tuned to GoLeafs.net later this evening for more coverage of Cockerham's milestone, marking the first time in four seasons that a GC player has hit quadruple figures.
Kiarah Copeland led Goshen (6-17, 3-10 Crossroads League) with 9 points. Cockerham finished with 7 and four players added 6. TaNiece Chapman led the team with 7 rebounds.
Ella Collier led all scorers with 18 points for Marian (21-4, 13-0), which moved within three games of an unblemished conference regular season. Imani Guy added 15 points and a game-high 9 rebounds while Collier chipped in 8 caroms.
Marian shot 45 percent from the floor and 39 percent from long range, outdoing a Goshen team that posted figures of 32 percent and 36 percent respectively. The Knights scored the first 13 points of the game and added a 12-0 spurt in the third quarter.
Goshen worked its way back into the game after the initial deficit, getting a Claire Rauck 3-pointer to open its account and another to close within 16-10 at the 0:58 mark of the first quarter.
Cockerham's 3-pointer that pulled her over the 1,000-point hump came at 5:20 of the second quarter and closed the team within 23-19, prompting a Marian timeout. The Knights added six straight points later in the quarter to push the lead out to double figures and it was 33-23 at halftime.
MU went 8-of-15 from the floor in the third quarter, outscoring Goshen 22-6 before the Maple Leafs had their own 22-point quarter in the fourth. Seven of Copeland's points came in the second half, including both of her 3-pointers.
Triples from Copeland, Flowers and Copeland again highlighted an 11-2 run in the fourth period that pulled Goshen to within 63-40 with 5:22 remaining. Mariah Roe and Camryn Kopka each had 3-pointers later in the quarter as well.
All 15 Maple Leafs saw action for at least 2 minutes; 12 of them scored and 11 added rebounds. Marian got 12 players in the game with 11 scoring and nine getting rebounds.
Despite the loss, Goshen still moved two steps closer to a spot in the conference tournament as ninth-place Bethel lost to Taylor and eighth-place Grace lost to Indiana Wesleyan. The Maple Leafs can clinch their first postseason berth in four years with a league win in one of their final three games against Mount Vernon Nazarene, Huntington and Bethel.
Goshen returns to the floor for a non-conference matchup on Wednesday when it hosts Grace Christian University in Ruth Gunden Gymnasium. The meeting was made possible by an open date set aside on the Crossroads League calendar to facilitate COVID-19 rescheduling: Goshen has no conference postponements to make up at this time. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. in the team's penultimate home game of the season.
