In a crucial late-season contest, the women’s basketball team took down Louisiana College 64-49 on Feb. 11.
Coming out of the gate, the Lady Wildcats hit the Comets with a full-court press, leading to some sloppy play as UTD struggled to keep the ball in its hands. Despite finishing the first half with 11 turnovers, UTD was able to maintain its composure and finish the half with a 35-27 lead.
Head coach Polly Thomason said the team was able to settle down after its initial struggles.
“We started to make better reads and give our point guards and guards better angles to break the press,” she said. “That’s really the key of the press break is just creating good angles and making good decisions in the press and we did that spotty. It wasn’t very consistent, we had good possessions, bad possessions, but we did good enough to pull out the victory.”
Although the Comets struggled with shooting, hitting just 21.7 percent of their three-point shots and just 43.1 percent from the field, they were still able to use their bigs to drive into the paint. Although senior guard Jasmine Lopez contributed 13 points, the majority of the teams’ points came from the team’s forwards and centers cutting to the basket.
Junior center Nicolette Erkman, who led the team in scoring with 15 points, said the strategy was to get a lot of movement in the paint.
“They had bigger posts and we figured we had a lot of speed on them, so if we were to get them farther out and then the guards kick it in, and if it wasn’t for us then it was for the kick out to the guards,” she said.
With the win, the Comets swept Louisiana College in the regular season and moved into fourth-place in the ASC East. With just three games left in the season, every game counts as UTD fights for a spot in the conference tournament.
Erkman said the win against Louisiana College was huge as the team gets ready for its final game at home against East Texas Baptist University on Saturday.
“We need to win out at this point,” she said. “This was a good confidence booster for us, I think. It showed us how hard we need to work to get these wins and we’re prepared to come in Saturday and work just as hard.”
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