ICC Women’s 70-point win: By the numbers
Jeremy Jacob, Harbinger
Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015
Dejection didn’t follow the Illinois Central College Women’s Basketball team home from their trip to Florida. They proved it by blowing out Black Hawk College-Moline 101-31 Wednesday night.
The Florida trip didn’t yield positive memories for the Cougars or their fans as they lost both games by an average of 26 points. However, the trip did yield some positive lessons according to coach Redeker.
“After our Florida trip where we lost two games by an average of 26 points,” Redeker said. “We realized we needed to play harder and every team member needed to focus on doing the little things like getting deflections on defense, our guards rebounding better, each player denying on defense, and how energetic can I be on the bench.”
The Cougars employed a “tenacious D”, according to Redeker, that involved them forcing 41 turnovers, nabbing a season-high 28 steals, and recording 53 deflections. The 41 turnovers committed by BHC-Moline outnumbered the 31 points they scored. Brandi Fier lead the team with 6 steals and had 6 deflections, Emma Heisler and Jemia Carpenter both contributed 4 steals along with a team-high 9 and 6 deflections, respectively, and Hayley Reneau’s 3 steals along with a team-high 9 deflections helped the cause.
ICC also helped themselves with a balanced attack racking up a season-high 30 assists. Katelynn Martinez lead the team with 5 assists, Reneau had 4 assists, and three Cougars–Fier, Kierra Weir, and Clarisa Martinez–each contributed 3 assists.
The balanced attack also featured 62 bench points including a sum of 30 from their two top scorers. Destiny Ramsey had a game-high 16 points and Emma Heisler had 14 points with the help of four made three-pointers. Ramsey’s 16 points being the game-high meant that nobody reached the 20-point threshold even though the team scored over 100 points.
“We didn’t focus on individual scoring,” Redeker said. “Instead it was on our defensive effort which led to lots of easy baskets. Scoring will take care of itself if we play unselfishly and do what we are supposed to do in all facets of the game.”
It isn’t often that the margin of victory is 70 points, but there was a time when an ICC Women’s team won by that margin. One would have to go back two seasons to March 5, 2015, to see the last time it happened. That day, the Cougars beat Lincoln College 105-35 with the help of Chanta Wright’s game-high 27 points, 42 forced turnovers, 33 assists, and 42 bench points.
ICC, in their latest 70-point victory, got off to a hot start leading 43-19 at the half and then kept their foot on the accelerator. At the start of the fourth quarter, ICC had a 25-2 run that then snowballed into a 95-28 score with 3 minutes left in the game. Coach Redeker thinks this will lead to more positive memories going forward.
“To be honest, we learned more in our two recent losses than winning big last night,” Redeker said. “Although I would hope that our team saw the reward for giving great effort, focusing on the little things, & being a great teammate can do, no matter who we play. The sky’s the limit for this team; we need to continue to work hard every day in practice and keep improving.”
Going into Wednesday night, the Cougars in their four previous wins were averaging a margin of victory of 16.5 points. After their big triumph, they are averaging a margin of victory of 27.2 points.
Cover photo by David Cruz. Sophomore Natora Landers guarding an inbound pass.