This one hurt. By A.A Johnson | June 14, 2025, 4:00am EAT

Last night’s loss to the KCCA Leopards might have been the worst of the season for the Lady Jaguars. What’s really sad is that the same issues we have been talking about since Round 1 are still the same issues that we see happening in the game.

It was pretty tough to imagine that they’d be able to top the lifeless effort they showed up with at YMCA last night against the KCCA Leopards, but they did. The Jaguars’ second loss to the same team this season had it all: missed shots, poor defense, second-chance points, questionable offense, and game-costing mental lapses.

Let’s take a quick walk through the house of horrors, shall we?

We started the game pretty much fair; it was much of a trade of baskets. Even if KCCA won the quarter by 4 points, we still had plenty of time.

If you want to talk about pain, look no further than the second quarter. Fans got their first warning that they could be in for it early in the second when the Lady Jaguars made back-to-back turnovers. Four minutes into the quarter, and it was only Sarah Ageno converting and answering the firing power of KCCA. She contributed 3 baskets before Mercy Batamuliza could chip in a basket. The Lady Jaguars spent the remainder of the quarter missing shot after shot as the Leopards sneaked in to extend their lead. The Jaguars shot just 4–17 in the period and turned the ball over 11 times. It was BRUTAL.

The good things all began surfacing in the second half, where the Lady Jaguars now woke up to the reality that they had to equate the energy and physicality of the Leopards — which they did. In the 3rd quarter, they had 14 points while KCCA had 15 (1-point difference). In the fourth, they had 11 points while KCCA had 10 points. This means they equaled the second half with 25 points each. Now this dates back to an issue we already mentioned earlier — that we have a big problem with our beginnings, and now it’s costing us games. The 17-point deficit in this game all came in the first half, which was evidently not giving.

It’s incredible. We’ve seen plays like the ones above in several close games. There has been little to no sustained change somehow. Sure, they looked good against the Angels on Wednesday night, but that sort of effort was nowhere to be found when they needed it.

The lone bright spot in this game was the captain herself — Sarah Ageno’s hot scoring stretch that fueled the offense. She poured in 18 points on 7–11 from the field, with 8 rebounds. Mambo Maimuna then came in with 10 points, with at least 2 three-pointers. Speaking of three-pointers, we only made THREE!!! 3 out of 25 attempts. Definitely, if Angels Basketball Club limited us to only 5, what would you expect from KCCA?

Mary Priscilla had one three-pointer, contributing 7 points, while Mercy Batamuliza came in with 5 points but with a strong 19 rebounds — which is close to the only good thing about this game.

We’ve reached a point where the Lady Jaguars are trying to tell us who they are, and we’re just going to have to listen. It’s going to take quite a bit now to convince me they’ve figured something out. All of the bad habits resurfaced once the threes stopped finding the bottom of the net — the way it’s gone all season so far.

Next game is against the Miracle Eaglets on Sunday at the same place. The ladies will have to regroup and come back into the winning circle.