By Charlie Leffler
Coming into Wednesday night’s match-up against Coppin State, Louisville head coach Martin Clapp emphasized that he wanted a better defensive effort put forth by his players. After U of L gave up 94-points to Western Kentucky a week and a half earlier the team needed to find a way to stop their opponents.
Though the Lady Cards (4-2) were not consistent throughout the game, they were effective, limiting the Lady Eagles (3-6) to 36.5% shooting from the field and forcing 30 turnovers in a 96-45 victory. It was the first time that U of L held an opponent under 50-points since limiting to Saint Louis to 44 on Feb. 16, of last year.
“Before the game we had set a goal to keep them under 75,” said forward Amanda Wolke. “We kept them to 45. I think that’s a great thing. We really made an effort to come out and stop them tonight.”
Louisville used intense defense, scrambling after every ball, stretching for every pass, and swatting at every shot taken. “Coach said that he wanted some hustle points out of us,” said Wolke, “and that comes from deflections, offensive rebounds and things like that.”
The Cards used the floor leadership of sophomore point guard Sara Nord to jump out to a 22-9 lead by the 13:51 mark of the first half. Over the stretch Nord dished out seven assists and scored the two baskets that she did not assist on. From that point on Louisville never looked back.
“That was a good team for us to work on our defense agaisnt,” said Nord. “But coach Clapp said at halftime that six out of seven times had to play man, they scored. So, that wasn’t a good thing, but our zone defense helped us out a lot.”
Yet, Clapp provided added incentive for Louisville’s hustle. “He said whoever gets the hustle stats don’t have to do conditioning next time in practice,” said Nord, “so, everybody was getting their hands up.”
“I thought they were very focused on the defensive end,” said Clapp. “Even though we talked about the defensive, when you score your first ten possessions of the game that gets jumped started pretty well. As a coach you preach that defense starts the offense. Tonight I think the offense started the defense because we felt more comfortable with what we were playing.”
U of L also got an emotional lift when center Tiana Ford swatted a Shannon Muir three-point attempt into the five row of seats off the court.
“I’m always on them about the only shots I want blocked is in the paint area,” said Clapp. “But I had to bite my tongue on that one. That was as deep into the stands as I’ve seen. She’s the most emotional player that we’ve got. She’s going to get mad, she’s going to get pumped up. She kind of keys us a lot of times.”
The Cards pulled out to a 44-14 lead with 3:28 to go in the half and led 49-22 at the break.
It was not until three minutes left in the half the Lady Eagles managed to put together back to back baskets for the first time in the game but they were to little effect.
With the big lead the Cards did not come out after the break with the same intensity. allowing the Lady Eagles to outscore them 9-2. Clapp saw enough and took a timeout less than two minutes into the half.
“He told us that if you’re not going to play hard I’m going to sub you out,” said Nord. “He just looked at us and said, ‘do you want to sub out,’ and everybody was like, ‘no.'” The Cards outscored the Lady Eagles 14-5 when they came back out onto the floor.
Coppin State head coach Derek Brown finally called a timeout with 9:23 left in the game after an Amanda Wolke run out lay in increased the lead to 72-36, doubling the Lady Eagles score but it did little to stop the pressure or the scoring that the Cards were providing.
Next up for the Cards will be a first round game against Ohio St. in the Women’s Sports Foundation Tournament in Columbus on Friday at 8:00. The game will be televised on Insight Channel 8
