Postgame: Mitshi Ishioka (Carlsbad, Calif./Carlsbad) (video)
Highlights (video)

Despite a spectacular all-around performance from Mitshi Ishioka (Carlsbad, Calif., Carlsbad), the Harper College women's basketball team dropped a 67-46 decision to Waubonsee Community College (6-7) on Thursday night.  Two nights after scoring a season-high 38 points, the Hawks easily eclipsed that total in large part to the free throw shooting of Ishioka, who knocked down her first 14 freebies before finally missing her last attempt.
 
“She is our best free throw shooter, period,” said head coach Nichole Jones.  “She will make them pretty consistently.  Going into the game, she wasn't her best in terms of statistics, which is weird because she shoots better than that.  She showed tonight what we always see in practice.  She never misses in practice.  Tonight will certainly help that percentage.”
 
Packing it in using a tight zone defense, Harper frustrated Waubonsee into 34% shooting in the first half and 37% from the field for the game.  Harper forced Waubonsee into 24 turnovers.
 
“One of the things that we've been talking about is the basics of the zone defense,” Jones said.  “They did just enough things right that it made Waubonsee turn over the ball.  Waubonsee had a lot of traveling and bad passes.  I wanted them to see that you can attribute that directly to defense.”
 
The Hawks (0-8) fell behind early as the Chiefs (6-7) sprinted to a 12-0 lead just under three minutes into the game.  But Harper's defense picked it up, holding Waubonsee scoreless for over five minutes.  During that stretch, Ishioka got the Hawk's offense going with a driving bank shot and a pair of free throws.
 
After an 11-0 run from Waubonsee, Harper played even with the Chiefs the rest of the half.  Ishioka hit two more free throws before rebounding her own miss and scoring.  The point guard added a left handed runner plus a foul to tally the team's first 11 points.  Sarah Eschenbaum (Lake Zurich, Ill., Lake Zurich) scored six seconds before intermission to pull Harper within 34-17 at the break.
 
The Chiefs took their biggest lead of the game at 53-29 with 11:49 left but the Hawks desperately tried to whittle their way back into the game.  Sancha Ogden (Hanover Park, Ill., Hoffman Estates) found Eschenbaum for a layup off a sidelines out of bounds play before Eschenbaum hit a jumper.  Trailing 61-39, Harper rattled off seven straight points in just over a minute.  Baskets from Brittany Walls (Island Lake, Ill., Palatine) sandwiched around two free throws from Eschenbaum and one from Ishioka made it 61-46 with 3:40 left.
 
Ishioka finished with 22 points, seven rebounds and four assists, and Eschenbaum scored all 12 of her points in the final 20:06 of the game.  Ogden made three of her five shots to go along with a team-high nine rebounds while Walls had six points and four rebounds.  Alyssa Arwady (Rolling Meadows, Ill., Rolling Meadows) chipped in with four rebounds.
 
“A game like this is a win for us,” Jones said.  “If they do a few things that we're asking them to do, they saw that they can have success.”
 
Harper gets a day off before traveling to College of Lake County (2-10) on Saturday afternoon.  Tipoff is scheduled for 1:00 PM.  The game with the Lancers will be the team's last of 2011.