Fort Lewis College’s women’s basketball team won both of their matchups this weekend in their Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference home openers. FLC, currently ranked 20th in the nation, beat the Colorado Mesa University Mavericks 57-51 on Friday night and then went on to defeat the Western State Mountaineers 68-54 on Saturday night.
Friday: FLC Wins big RMAC matchup with CMU, 57-51
Coming into the Friday matchup, both CMU and FLC were jockeying for RMAC supremacy, with the Mavericks coming in 8-0 (2-0 in RMAC) and the Skyhawks coming in 6-1 (1-1). Looking forward, both teams knew that this matchup could be one that really matters later on in the season.
Both teams played played like they knew this was a pivotal RMAC matchup. The Skyhawks came into this game as the second highest scoring team in the RMAC and were facing off against the second ranked defensive team in the RMAC, so this was truly a strength against strength matchup.
The Skyhawks plan of attack coming into the game was to pound the paint and move the ball, head coach Jason Flores said pre-game.
That plan was put into action in the first quarter of the game. FLC led 18-15 at the end of one and had an 8-2 lead in points in the paint.
However, Mesa had a plan too, and seemingly, that plan was to give the ball to senior guard Erin Reichle and let her go to town.
Reichle was absolutely on fire as she scored 22 of the Mavs 31 points at halftime and led her team to a four point advantage at the intermission, 31-27.
The Skyhawks had no answers for Reichle in the first half, but made a halftime adjustment to stop Mesa’s star guard.
They switched the primary defender who was on Reichle from senior Astrea Reed to sophomore guard Kayla Herrera and this switch made all the difference. Herrera and the Skyhawks held Reichle to just two points in the second half.
“I kinda went against our team principles and I wasn’t really playing the team defense,” Herrera said.“I was just face-guarding her. I wasn’t going help side like we usually do. My team stepped up and did the things that I wasn’t doing because coach gave me that go to switch it around.”
This switch also allowed Reed and freshman forward Vivian Gray to focus on the scoring. Reed and Gray ended the game scoring 36 of FLC’s 57 points and helped assure the victory.
“I’m glad that we won the game the way we won it and I think that is gonna help us somewhere down the road,” Flores said. “I really do. Everyone wants to play flawless and pretty and just have it all clicking and it wasn’t tonight but you know they are the best defensive team in the conference right now.”
“We needed to just eek one out,” Flores said. “I told that team we were gritty, which is a great thing to see.”
Saturday: FLC Dominates Second Half, Beats Western State 68-54
After the emotional rollercoaster of Friday night, some would speculate that the game against Western State on Saturday might have been a trap game for the Skyhawks, but that wasn’t the case as FLC cruised to victory 68-54.
The FLC women played lackadaisically in the first half of Saturdays matchup. They were not playing defense the way that they can and their offense was looking undeveloped.
The first half really came down to one thing: effort, Gray said.
Coach Flores said that there were no huge adjustments that needed to be made at halftime; the team just needed to try harder.
In the second half, the Skyhawks played like the team that they know they can be. They forced 13 turnovers from Western on the defensive end and only committed six of their own on offense.
Gray and Reed were going off and ended the game scoring 24 and 20 respectively. They got bench contributions from redshirt-sophomore forward Jordan Carter, who had six points, and from senior guard Shelby Patterson, who played active defense and scored five points on four shots.
When the final buzzer sounded, the Skyhawks had won by 14 points, 68-54, but it really was not that close. When the starters got pulled out of the game with 2:30 left in the game, the Hawks were up 22 points.
“We were just kind of there and kind of cloudy,” Reed said of the first half. “That’s what we saw on the court. Running in transition we were a little slow. Defensively we didn’t really put it on them. We weren’t the attackers defensively this game.”
Going forward, this team knows what they can be, but they seem to know that they have a target on their back and they need to bring it every night, Flores said.
The win propels the Hawks to 8-1 (3-1) and drops the Mountaineers to 4-6 (1-3).
The next game for the FLC women’s basketball team will be this coming Tuesday night at home at 5:30 against the Adams State University Grizzlies 2-4 (0-4).