WKU Women’s Basketball (1-4) lost its first game ever to Lipscomb (4-3) 84-66 at Diddle Arena Tuesday night. 

The Lady Toppers came into Tuesday’s contest 3-0 all-time against the Lipscomb Bison, with their last matchup coming in 2016. 

Lipscomb put together an outstanding shooting performance as WKU’s defense struggled to contain the Bison’s firepower. The Bison shot 59.6% from the field and 59.1% from three. Lipscomb made 13 three pointers on the night, while the Lady Toppers only made five.

Head coach Greg Collins explained that he thought the Lady Topper’s did a good job causing pressure with their full-court press, but that the half-court defense broke down. 

Senior guard Jalyn Holcomb carried the Lipscomb offense with an outstanding shooting performance. Holcomb dropped 22 points on 9-10 shooting from the field and 4-5 shooting from three. Holcomb also tallied five rebounds and three assists.

Unlike the Bison, the Lady Toppers had a very rough showing on offense. WKU shot 37.5% from the field and only shot 18.5% from three. The Lady Toppers had success at getting to the line as they shot 22 free throws on the night and made 15 of them.  

“Right now, the bottom line is we’re not playing well,” Collins said.”We’re not playing well, offensively, we are missing a lot of shots. This is the third meeting. I know that we’ve gotten more field goal attempts than our opponents, but they made more shots.”

A bright spot for the Lady Toppers was in the turnover battle. Lipscomb turned the ball over 19 times and WKU only turned it over seven times. 

Freshman guard Acacia Hayes was another bright spot for WKU as she put up 15 points on a very efficient 5-6 from the field.

WKU was out-rebounded 38-27 in the contest, but Collins was not entirely discouraged with the rebounding effort.  

“I felt like we kept battling on the boards,” Collins said. “Even though we were giving up a lot of inches at every position, we continued to fight.”

Lipscomb got off to a very strong start in the first quarter and never looked back. The Bison quickly took a 17-10 lead out of the gate before missing a shot. The visitors made their first seven shots, including a trio of three-pointers. 

Both teams then went on a scoring drought that lasted over two minutes before Lipscomb went on a 10-5 run to close out the first quarter at 27-15. 

The Bison came into the second quarter strong with two made threes to start the period. Those threes began a 16-5 run that gave Lipscomb a 43-20 lead in the second quarter. 

The Lady Toppers responded with a strong final 3:16 of the first half in which they cut the deficit to 50-38.

Lipscomb came out of the half with a 7-2 run to begin the third quarter. The Lady Toppers then brought it within 15 before the Bison ended the quarter on an 11-5 run over three and a half minutes.

WKU began the fourth quarter with its best run of the game. The Lady Toppers outscored Lipscomb 11-2 in the first five minutes of the quarter to cut the deficit to 12.

That was where the Lady Toppers’ luck ended, however, as Lipscomb outscored them in the remaining five minutes and took home an 84-66 victory. 

Up next, the Lady Toppers will face Ball State in Muncie, Indiana on Friday. The game is set to begin at 5:30 p.m. CT.

Football reporter Camden Bush can be reached at [email protected].