Eight in a Row
February 07, 2004 09:46 PM | General
February 7, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Once again West Virginia coach Mike Carey had to use his best Knute Rockne speech on his team at halftime.
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| Sherell Sowho scores two of her game-high 13 points Saturday against Syracuse. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
And once again, his team responded with a strong second half to outdistance Syracuse, 56-36 before a spirited crowd of 1,790 Saturday night at the WVU Coliseum.
“We came out flat at the beginning of the game,” said Carey. “Syracuse is a tough team to play. They take a lot of time off the shot clock and you have a tendency to play the same way when you go down to the other end. We struggled to get our girls to move without the basketball today and we just didn’t have a lot of movement. In the second half we hit a couple more shots and were able to build our lead.”
Leading by just six at the break, the streaking Mountaineers scored six straight points at the start of the second half to take their lead out to 12.
Kate Bulger got the run going with a short jumper. Yolanda Paige followed with a steal and layup and another steal by Paige resulted in a Sherell Sowho layup.
“We really needed to come out strong at the start of the second half,” said Meg Bulger. “I think we did that with our defense.”
“Our defense was okay in the first half but it was almost like we were a little lazy,” added center Michelle Carter. “The second half we had to come out with a lot more energy because we wanted this game and we didn’t want them to win it at the end.”
Leading 35-30 with 12:16 to go, the Mountaineers went on a 10-0 run to take a 15-point lead. Meg Bulger began the spurt with a key three-point basket. A pair of free throws by Michelle Carter boosted the advantage to 10, and Kate Bulger followed with a three and a Sowho steal and layup gave the Mountaineers a 45-30 advantage.
WVU (17-5, 8-2) was able to push its lead out to 24 by holding Syracuse scoreless for almost six minutes. The Orangewomen finally broke the drought with 2:55 to go when Rochelle Coleman hit a pair of free throws.
Syracuse (6-14, 3-7) had great difficulty operating in the half court. West Virginia’s Janell Dunlap completely shut down Syracuse leading scorer Julie McBride, holding the point guard to just 1 of 8 shooting for 2 points. Post player Chineze Nwagbo, who scored 17 in an earlier game against the Mountaineers, managed to tally just 5 on 2 of 5 shooting.
Overall, Syracuse made 16 of 51 field goal attempts for 31.4 percent. The Orangewomen went 0 for 12 from three-point distance. Lauren Kohn was Syracuse’s leading scorer with 9 points.
“I thought defensively our young ladies did okay,” said Carey. “But when we came down on the offensive end it seemed like we just stood around. We didn’t execute our primary fast break exactly how we’ve been doing it and because of that we didn’t get a lot of early options that we normally get.”
Sowho led West Virginia with 13 on 6 of 9 shooting. Yolanda Paige contributed 12 points and 5 assists and Carter added 10 points. Meg Bulger scored 8 off the bench and led WVU with 7 rebounds.
“We came out a little flat and we knew we had to pick it up in the second half if we wanted to win,” said Meg.
West Virginia has now won eight in a row including five straight in Big East play.
“I worry about every game,” said Carey. “I don’t care if we’re playing a junior high team. This is one of those games where we beat them on the road and they’re coming here and everybody is reading about our next six games, four of them against Top 25 teams. Am I happy to get the win? Absolutely, but man we’ve got to have a good week of practice and come out a lot quicker with a lot better ball movement going down the stretch.”
The Mountaineers now enter their toughest stretch of the season beginning Tuesday when they face No. 21-ranked Virginia Tech Tuesday night at the Coliseum. That game begins a difficult six-game stretch where all of West Virginia’s opponents are ranked in the RPI Top 30.
“We need to start executing again and we need to start playing hard again because it’s not going to get any easier as we head down the stretch,” said Carey.
Notebook: Syracuse failed to make a three-point basket for the first time in its last 119 games … West Virginia outscored Syracuse 28-12 in the paint … Mike Carey used freshman Meg Bulger at point guard at times during the second half, but he says he was doing it mainly because of a favorable matchup, “They had one of their posts on her and the whole game we tried to get Meg to take her off the dribble,” he said. “For some reason she would not do that so I thought if we put her at the point she had to take it off the dribble” … for the second time in a span of three games WVU held a Big East opponent to 36 points ... last Saturday Pitt managed 36 in a 20-point loss ... WVU is one of seven league teams holding opponents to an average of 60 points or less ... West Virginia has a three-game win streak against Syracuse and swept the Orangewomen for the first time since joining the Big East in 1995-96 … Paige moved into fourth on the school’s all-time single season assist list with 177, passing Lisa Ribble-Stolar who handed out 176 in 1985 …Kate Bulger’s 112 rebounds this year gives her a career high with six regular season games left … Kate has now started her Big East-leading 105th consecutive game, which is fifth nationally and a school record at WVU … Sowho is 33 points shy of becoming the school’s 22nd 1,000-point scorer; Sowho tallied 13 tonight for her team-leading 17th double-figure game … Mountaineer point guard Yolanda Paige was credited with just five assists tonight; Paige is averaging two fewer assists per game at home than on the road … Paige has handed out 116 assists in 13 games away from the Coliseum for an average of 8.9; she has been credited with 61 assists in nine home games for an average of 6.8 … Paige leads the conference in assists with 177 … West Virginia’s 17 victories equals the 1983, 1984 and the 1991 teams for ninth all-time in single season wins … tonight’s announced crowd of 1,790 was the 14th largest in school history.
