Avila Falls to Park in 2023 Season Opener

PARKVILLE, Mo. – Avila women's basketball began to put some of its many new pieces into place in the first game of the 2023-24 campaign, but the Eagles (0-1) came up short against an improved Park (1-0) squad in their season opener, dropping the game by a final count of 73-65 on Monday night in Parkville.

Head coach Remy Wolfe and company have done a lot of work behind the scenes to craft a very new-looking team ahead of game one of year two of Wolfe's tenure as Eagle head coach – four of Avila's five starters were new to the team (though only one was new to college basketball) and a total of seven players made their Avila debuts on Monday.

All of the team stats pointed towards the Pirates, but by very slim margins. And Avila was firmly in the mix in the first quarter and rallied to outscore Park by five in the fourth quarter to get back in the game late – but the Pirates outscored the Eagles by nine over the middle 20 minutes, directly correlating to what became an 8-point win for the home team.

The Eagles drew first blood in the 2023-23 campaign courtesy of a three-pointer from freshman Marlie Wright a minute into the game, but Park answered with a three-pointer of their own and then swiftly made three more to build a 12-3 lead over the first five minutes, and the Pirates really never looked back.

Avila never led or even tied the score again, but the Eagles never were out of the fight, clawing back into the game later in the first quarter thanks to some critical points from Morgan Wiseman and a three from Kathleen Stanley, cutting a double-digit deficit down to 21-17 after ten minutes.

From there things remained close until the Pirates built their biggest lead, 16 points, at the midway mark of the third quarter. Down big again, the Eagles once again rallied to more than make it a game. Even though Park remained hot from the field in the fourth quarter the Eagles more than kept pace, getting eight points over the final ten minutes from Wright and another seven from fellow freshman guard Mia Smith to get the score back within single digits. The deficit proved too big to overcome, however, and Park held firm to win the game 73-65.

Taylor Shelby led the Pirates with 17 points, nearly all of which came in the early stages of the game, and Nevaeh Spillman had 16, nearly all of which came late; Wright started strong and finished strong with 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting in her Avila debut; Hannah Pinkston filled the stat sheet with nine points, seven rebounds and six assists; Wiseman had seven points and four boards, all in the first half.

Up next is the Eagles' 2023 home debut, coming up this Thursday, November 2 in Mabee Fieldhouse against Baptist Bible College. As always, you can watch the game live and for free on the Avila Sports Network with Joe Van Amburg on the call from Kansas City.