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Women’s basketball team
hoping to play best ball heading into Patriot League Tournament BY MIKE UNGER
Photos by Larry French
Coach Melissa McFerrin, above, will lead Joanna Barnes, below, Tara Williams, and the rest of the women’s basketball team against Lehigh University tomorrow night.
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Defense, defense, defense. Ask AU women’s basketball coach Melissa McFerrin what the key to her team’s success is, and she won’t hesitate to answer. “The eternal focus is on our defense, which is how we’re going to win basketball games,” she said. “We’ve had to kind of reinvent ourselves. We’ve had some injuries and a new coaching staff come in. Hopefully, we’re remembering the importance our defense makes.” With two games left before the Patriot League Tournament, the Eagles are playing some of their best ball of the season. AU women beat Lafayette 58-56 Saturday and on Feb. 13, defeated Colgate 73-59 in a dominating performance highlighted by suffocating “D.” “I think with the win over Colgate we saw many of the things we’re striving for,” McFerrin said. “We saw a very sound defensive effort, we got contributions from many people, including off of our bench. We shot the ball better than we’ve shot it in a while. We have as our defensive goal to hold teams to 55 points. When we can put [73] on the board that takes a lot of pressure off our defense.” The Eagles were paced offensively by senior guards Angel Jordan, who led all scorers with 21 points, and Joanna Barners, who
added 13. “Not only did Angel hit shots, she was solid on the defense end, and that allowed her to have more minutes on the floor and score,” McFerrin said. “Joanna did a great job late in the game taking the shots that the offense provided for her, and not forcing bad shots. When we can have two people score like that, it puts much less pressure on our defense.” In addition to the veterans, AU’s backcourt has been bolstered this season by sophomore Tara Williams, a 5-foot-6-inch firecracker from Newport News, Va. “She’s been so consistent from a defensive standpoint, and she’s become quite a scorer,” McFerrin said. “She’s carved out a role for herself in terms of being a defensive stopper. She’s learned how to take shots in transition, and she’s also found out how to get to the free-throw line.” One of AU’s toughest tests of the season arrives tomorrow when the Patriot League’s second-place team, Lehigh University, comes calling at Bender Arena. When the two teams tangled Jan. 8 at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa., AU dropped a 72-51 decision. Sophomore Sara Ellis’s 26 points and senior Jessica DePalo’s 16 led the Mountain Hawks to the victory. McFerrin said the key to reversing her team’s fortunes this go-round rests with the Eagles’—surprise, surprise—defense. “Our defense has to hold,” she said. “[Lehigh] shoots the ball extremely well. It needs to be a low scoring game for us. DePalo and Ellis hurt us last time, so we’re going to have to focus on those two. They’re a senior dominated team, and they play like that.” With a record of 11-14, 6-6 in the Patriot League, the Eagles sit in fourth place in the conference. As a roller-coaster season winds down, the team’s goal remains the same: win the conference tournament and make it to the NCAAs. “We had done a really great job of keeping our turnovers down, but right now we’ve gotten a little turnover happy, “ McFerrin said. “Our shooting percentage has got to continue to improve. We’ve been a work in progress most of the year. I’ve told the players that if we continue to get better we’re going to be just fine. The games we’ve won have been when we’ve played very, very consistent from an effort standpoint. In order for us to win the conference tournament we have to win three games in a row, and if we have a consistent effort I think we can do it.” |
