DePauw's Hannah Gardner (right) breaks down and plays
defense on Hiram's Kaylee Shockley (left). Number 1 seeded
DePauw ran past Hiram 75-38 as DePauw
attempts to win its 16th NCAC championship.
SAM CARAVANA/THE DEPAUW
The Hiram College Terriers stuck with the Tigers in the first half, only down 28-20 going into halftime. Then, the Tigers came out in the second half—blowing them out 45-17 for a final score of 75-38.
Senior Savannah Trees made progress in nearing the all time scoring record with a game-high 22 points scored, followed by fellow classmate Lauren Abendroth with 11 points.
Despite the high scoring by Trees, the first half started out slow offensively for both teams.
“Our mentality going into the game was that we wanted to focus on our defense and from that good things would happen,” said sophomore Claire Ryan. “We were prepared for what they were going to do and we were confident that if we had a good defensive game we would be able to come out with the win.”
Holding Hiram to 38 points makes it clear they succeeded in that area.
Hiram’s poor regular season record (7-19) didn’t cause the Tigers to go easy on them.
“We knew Hiram had nothing to lose going into the game and to beat us would make their season and that would be their only shot at making it into the NCAA tournament,” first-year Kylie Morris. “We studied their players and knew their individual strengths and weaknesses, as well as reviewed the plays we knew they ran and trying to find the best way to stop them from scoring on them.”
The entire team credits the win to Coach Huffman’s plan.
"We followed the game plan,” first-year Hannah Gardner said.
Now the Tigers are up against Ohio Wesleyan University on Friday night at Neal Fieldhouse.
“We are preparing like we always do by coming up with plans on defense of how we want to guard specific players and figuring out how they will guard us so we will be able to run plays that they may have trouble guarding,” Ryan said.
The key has remained the same from the first game of the tournament though.
“We've been focusing a lot on our defense, individually and as a team, in order to shut our opponents offenses down because your defense makes it easier for your offense,” junior Morgan Skordos said.
The Tigers played the Battling Bishops in their last game of the season, just a week before, and beat them 74-69 in a tough battle.
“Because we played them just a week ago it is easier for us to remember how to guard them,” junior Abby Keller said, “but to prepare we have been going over their plays and tendencies and talking about the ways we can stop them with our defense.”
No matter what the previous final scores have been, the women’s team will stay humble.
“Coach told us that we played a good game and if we want a shot at the NCAA tournament we have to work harder because every team is out to get us,” Skordos said. “We've been preparing the same as any other game we've played this year except I think we are extra focused because we know the losing team is done for the year and we never want that to be us.”