Houghton Women Wear
Down Kangaroos
(Houghton,
N.Y.)—The Houghton College women’s basketball team pulled away from the
visiting SUNY Canton Kangaroos in the second half Thursday night to win
73-62.
“We started slowly.” said Houghton head coach Skip Lord, “We
were playing sort of lazy in our man-to-man defense. Defense generates
offense, and we were sort of lazy in our offense, too, and we really dug
ourselves a big hole.”
In fact,
the Highlanders trailed by as many 13 (28-15) before switching to a zone
defense turned things around for his team, according to Lord.
“We
switched to our perimeter-attack zone,” he said, “and were able to take
them out of their offensive stride a little bit, and gradually climbed
back in it.”
By halftime
the Highlanders had evened it up, 32-32. In the second half, they pulled
away and built a 15-point lead with 4:30 left. The Kangaroos had one
good run left, cutting the lead to just five (65-60) with 2:16 to go.
Down the
stretch, though, the Highlanders made their free throws and took care of
the ball to put the game away.
Lord
singled out the play of point guard Lisa Skrypnik as being important to
the team. “She had five assists and zero turnovers.” he said, “You’re
always looking for a positive assist-to-turnover ratio and 5:0 is pretty
good—and she played almost 30 minutes.
Cassie
Merrill led the team in scoring with 17, on four-of-eight shooting from
behind the arc and a five-for-seven night from the free throw line.
Becky
Kallal had 14 points. Ashley Dupler had 13 points and a game-high seven
rebounds while Leah French had 13 points and six rebounds. Ashley
Scudder (pictured above, at left) had five points and five rebounds.
The
Highlanders evened their record at 7-7. They play again Saturday
afternoon at 2 p.m. at Notre Dame College in S. Euclid, Ohio.
