Late night greetings from our hotel in the Windy City where we arrived a little over an hour ago. It was a late arrival form Milwaukee, but well worth it, as we beat Mount Mary College (NCAA III) 59-53 at their place. This was such an encouraging win in so many ways. Most recently, they beat us 77-76 at our place a week ago when we failed to execute in the final minute. Also, this is a team we haven't beaten in a few years, and their confidence was really high. And thirdly, we have honestly had some bad memories of games in the past, as well as other events surrounding the event.
Honestly, when this game began tonight, it looked like this would be another bad memory. We shot poorly, played tentatively against their pressure, and didn't protect the defensive rebounding. We were trailing by as many as eight points just four minutes into the game. We finally picked up the intensity in the latter portion of the first half. If you've followed us for the past six or eight games, you know we have been consistently putting up some great offensive numbers. So to enter the locker room down 24-17, I wasn't overly concerned because i know we have shooters. Also, the girls, as usual, were calm and intense in the locker room, clearly discussing the errors we had made in the first half.
It definitely helped. We started the second half on a 15-2 run thanks to tough half court defense and a good transition game. Tiff connected on a couple of 3's, Ellie continued to play great defense on the 6th leading scorer in the NCAA III, Rebekah dominated the hustle stats, Jenna defended the physical post, and Lydia produced key steals to dramatically turn the game to our favor.
We once again showed balanced scoring with Ellie (15), Tiff (14), Jenna (13) and Lyds (11) all hitting double digits. Rebekah led us with 11 rebounds and Jenna added nine. Lydia also was credited with seven steals. Ellie's defense limited their best player to 12 points, on 5 of 13 shooting, and five turnovers.
The girls are exhausted, so who knows what we will have left for a key regional match-up with Moody at 1pm on Saturday. Regardless, I know this team will come out and play hard!
Thanks for reading.
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