Women's Preview
January 20, 2004 01:08 PM | General
January 20, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia looks to keep its modest winning streak alive when it faces Marshall Tuesday evening in the Toyota Capital Classic in Charleston’s Civic Center.
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| Meg Bulger was named Big East rookie fo the week for the second time this year. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
West Virginia has won back-to-back games against St. John’s and Notre Dame to boost its overall record to 11-5 entering play Wednesday. West Virginia’s win at St. John’s last Tuesday was its first conference road win in nearly two years. The Mountaineers followed that up by defeating Notre Dame for the first time in school history, 64-51 on Saturday. West Virginia held Notre Dame scoreless for nearly nine minutes in the first half and Kate Bulger finished the game with a team-high 20 points.
Bulger is West Virginia’s top scorer averaging 15.1 points per game.
Junior guard Sherell Sowho is averaging 13.8 points per game and is shooting 46.8 percent from the floor. Junior point guard Yolanda Paige is scoring at a 12.1-points-per-game clip and is also handing out a conference-best 7.6 assists per game.
Those three are expected to be joined in the starting lineup by 6-foot-2 senior center Michelle Carter, who averages 8.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, and 5-foot-10 senior forward Janell Dunlap, who averages 6.6 points and a team-best 5.9 rebounds per game.
Six-foot freshman Meg Bulger is WVU’s top player off the bench averaging 7.2 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Marshall is making rapid improvement under third-year coach Royce Chadwick. The Thundering Herd dropped their last game at Buffalo 79-60, but sport a 10-5 record heading into Wednesday’s game against West Virginia.
Marshall shows wins over Morgan State, High Point, Radford, Wake Forest, Morehead State, Texas Pan American, Texas A&M, Lehigh, Kent State and Ohio; Marshall’s five losses have come against Austin Peay, Mississippi, Ball State, Western Michigan and Buffalo.
Marshall doesn’t have a player averaging double figures in points, but does have six players averaging between 9.7 points and 6.5 points per game.
Against Buffalo last Saturday, Marshall’s starting lineup consisted of Amy Smith, Sikeet Shepard-Hall and Teyonka Hodge at guards, Catie Knable at forward and Modupe Ishola at center.
West Virginia owns a 27-14 record in all-time series play and has taken the last two by scores of 62-37 and 67-63.
Marshall’s last win came in 2001, a 74-72 verdict.
Despite representing the state’s two Division I institutions, West Virginia coach Mike Carey doesn’t see Marshall as a big rival, “I have no rivalry with Marshall and our girls don’t have a rivalry with Marshall. I think the state has a rivalry with Marshall,” he said. “But yet we want to go down there and we want to win that basketball game. Every game we have here on out is very important.”
The women’s game will get underway at 5:30 pm and the contest will be televised statewide by West Virginia Public Television. The men’s game will follow the women’s contest at 8 pm. Tickets for both games are available by calling the Charleston Civic Center box office at (304) 345-7469.
