Players contribute points,
experience to Boiler win
By Anne McLaren
Assistant
Sports Editor
The veterans played with
poise as Purdue beat Eastern Michigan 84-60 in Mackey Arena Saturday
night in the first round of the preseason WNIT.
With the victory, the No.
4 Boilers (1-0) will face Georgetown (1-0) at 7 tonight in Mackey Arena
in the second round. Georgetown defeated James Madison 75-70 Saturday
night.
Senior center Camille Cooper
led all scorers with 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting. Junior Kelly Komara
scored 15 points and was perfect from the field and the free throw line.
Senior Katie Douglas added 12 points, seven assists and three steals.
"I’ve said from
day one that our upperclassmen will carry us as far as we go this year,
whether it’s leadership or whether its our actions on the court
at certain times," said Purdue coach Kristy Curry. "That’s
why my starting lineup is the way it is, and I think it gives us some
confidence early."
The Boilers got off to a
quick start early in the game and led 16-7 after five minutes. Eastern
Michigan kept the game close in the opening period, though, and cut
the Boiler lead to six a minute into the second half.
Eagles coach Suzy Merchant
said she had three keys to the game for her team to have a chance to
win.
"(We had to) make sure
that they didn’t score in transition, which I think we did a pretty
good job of actually," she said. "We lost our minds a little
bit in the second half, but that was a big key.
"Keeping them off the
offensive boards — we worked really hard with that. Those kids
are just bigger, stronger.
"We wanted to control
the tempo," she said. "We did that, we hung around but you
can’t make back-to-back mistakes in a row."
Offensively, 3-point shooting
kept the Eagles in the game. For the game, Eastern Michigan hit 9 of
25 3-point attempts, highlighted by Kristy Maska’s personal record
of six treys.
"Those kids are so good
that we thought that the dribble drive — trying to penetrate and
get some kicks and shoot some 3's would be more effective against them
than trying to hammer down low," said Merchant. "So that’s
what we tried to do."
Another thing Merchant tried
to do was limit Cooper’s effectiveness.
"Normally, when we play
our zone we just kind of get a hand in there," said Suzy Merchant.
"But anytime anyone on the baseline got the ball, our guard was
sitting in her lap. When (Cooper) catches it, she catches it so high
and she shoots so high that a cover down wouldn’t help us. She
never dribbles it or anything. We worked really hard on trying to not
let her get it. We had to put two people in her, which left a lot of
people open. But I figure, gotta take your chances."
Cooper said that the game
was "like fighting in an alley."
"I definitely had a
height advantage," she said "They did a good job. Sometimes
they would double down or push me from the back. It was different. It
was a physical game on both ends."
With its deeper bench, Purdue
was able to substitute frequently. Only Komara played 30 minutes. Douglas,
Cooper, and Erika Valek played 22, 29 and 23 minutes, respectively,
while five more played more than 14 minutes.
"She kept putting all
those kids in and every single one, top to bottom, is probably bigger,
faster, stronger than our kid," said Merchant. "And I’m
playing some of those kids 40 minutes a game. It made it a little tougher.
Having the luxury of having that kind of class and that kind of team
where you can press and trap and sit back and switch."
Purdue’s press helped
to create 11 steals and 18 Eagle turnovers.
Even though the press was
effective, Douglas said the Boilers have a lot of areas in which to
improve before tonight’s game.
"Defensively, I think
we played about as bad as we could in the first half," she said.
"In the second half we picked it up a little bit but we still had
those lapses with middle penetration. It’s all coming down to communication
with our teammates. Probably, defensive penetration and boxing out (are)
two keys that will take us far into the postseason. So I think we have
to get better at both of those things."
Curry agreed.
"We’re very poor
defensively," she said. "We’ve got a lot of kids that
need to learn. We’re not communicating very well. I think that
happens when you play a lot of people together. Regardless of the combination
that’s in there, they’ve got to communicate.
"We’ve got to roll
up our sleeves," she said. "I can see at times this year it’s
going to come down to a stop. And can we make that stop in big situations?
That concerns me right now. Do I have five people, regardless of who
they are, that can make a big stop at the right time?"
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