Photo credit: Greg Fiume
By Scott Greaney (@ScottGreaney_)
Women’s basketball snapped their four-game losing streak Thursday night as they breezed past Cheyney 91-30. After a disappointing run at the San Juan Shootout in Puerto Rico, the Revolutionaries (4-4) returned to the win column as their stifling defense limited the Wolves (0-2) to just 11 made baskets in the contest.
Thursday’s victory was a true team win as GW had four separate players in double figures. Junior guard Maxine Engel led the Revolutionaries in scoring with 21 points, while sophomore forward Caia Loving posted a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Coming into Thursday’s game, the Revolutionaries faced many lingering injuries as they were without graduate students Faith Blethen, Essence Brown, Madison Buford and Nya Lok. Fortunately, a matchup against Cheyney, who has only one player above 6-foot on their roster, played well into the Revolutionaries’ hands Thursday night.
From the opening tip, graduate forward, Maren Durant, led the initial charge on offense for the Revolutionaries, scoring their first nine points. Despite playing just 12 minutes, she finished with 13 points and six rebounds.
The game quickly opened up as GW ended the first quarter on a 17-0 run. The Revolutionaries effectively locked up the Cheyney offense, limiting the Wolves to just one made basket on 8.3% shooting from the field.
The Revolutionaries expanded their lead by 16 in the second quarter to get it up to 34 by halftime. Scoring the ball came easier for GW as they shot 58.8% from the floor and gave up just one turnover.
With the mounting injuries, there were many new faces that took to the court, including sophomore guard Natalia Sierra-Vargas, who scored her first four points of the season off consecutive layups.
“Everyone shows up to practice the same every day and we all put in that work… so it’s just really fun to see people get on that court and be able to score, like Nat has been with the program for 2 years and it’s just fun to see her score,” Engel said.
Freshman guard Kamari Sims was a flamethrower from deep, scoring all of her 15 points from beyond the arc while shooting a healthy 50%.
“We’ve challenged Kamari all week even before that, and so we recruited her to come in here and have an opportunity to play and we definitely want her to be able to shine. We know that she can do the things that she did today so we just want to continue to challenge her and motivate her, to continue to help out everybody in our program,” Coach Caroline McCombs said.
Throughout the game, GW dominated the glass, out-rebounding Cheyney 56-19. After all, Cheyney had only one player above 6-foot in Ijahnay Johnson. Coach McCombs’s squad was able to capitalize on this size advantage on the offensive end as well by attacking the paint and getting to the free-throw line.
“We definitely felt like we would have an advantage in the paint with their lack of size. We wanted to get the ball inside, get the ball outside, and then we were just able to pound it inside, really Caia and Maren did tremendous today in the paint,” McCombs said.
As part of GW’s plan to attack the rim and draw fouls, the Revs shot a tremendous 88.5% from the charity stripe, missing just 3 of their 26 free-throw attempts.
“It is a priority for us. We haven’t gotten there as much as we’ve wanted, and when we’ve gotten there, we haven’t knocked them down… I don’t know what the difference was today, but we want to build on that; that’s something that’s really important and will tremendously help out our team this season,” McCombs said.
Coming off a three-game stretch in San Juan in which GW shot a combined 13-for-54 from the three-point line, GW shot a consistent 35.7% from deep, knocking down 10 three-point jumpers in the contest.
“We’ll have a lot of time to get in the gym and get in extra work shooting, and that is something that’s really important to us. We continue stressing attacking and driving and things like that, but we are going to get open threes and we have to be able to knock those down. I think we have capable three-point shooters; I think we need to get into the gym and shoot more and I know that we will,” McCombs said.
GW will look to use this dominant win as a roll-starter when they travel north to face a tough squad in Towson next Wednesday, December 6th at 11 AM. This upcoming contest can be streamed on the ever-so trusty FloHoops.
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