 "Photo: Sholten Singer")
Marshall women’s basketball played defense Sunday like a kid who just got done trick-or-treating. They played stingy and its candy was baskets.
The Thundering Herd won Sunday’s exhibition game against West Virginia Wesleyan 73-41. Marshall’s defense held the Bobcats to only 32.5 percent shooting and forced 34 turnovers. Marshall outscored Wesleyan on points off turnovers alone, with 44.
Marshall head coach Royce Chadwick thought the overall play of sophomore point guards Alaya Mitchell and Tania Walters were the keys to the Herd’s dominating performance.
“We were really scared with our point guard stuff with Kasey Baker being gone,” Chadwick said. “We didn’t really know what we we’re going to do with the point guard position all summer, but I was ecstatic with the way we opened the season with Alaya and Tania taking care of things up there.”
Walters and Mitchell had seven and five steals, respectively. Mitchell said that going up against Walters every day in practice has helped prepare her for the grind that comes with being a point guard.
“I get so tired of me and Tania beating each other up for weeks and it had a big impact on what we did tonight,” Mitchell said. “It was a relief because I had Tania pressuring me for weeks and you know how quick she is and it helps.”
Walters, the five-foot guard from Toronto, Canada, was all over the floor. In a stretch of three Wesleyan possessions, it ended up being three straight Walters steals, leading to three Marshall baskets.
Walters understands her role of being the spark plug that comes off the bench.
“Starting doesn’t really matter to me; coming off the bench is good giving a spark to the team,” Walters said. “Wherever the ball is, I’m there. That’s my job.”
When Marshall wasn’t running the Bobcats out of the gym, it was junior forward Tynikki Crook asserting her dominance in the post.
Crook finished the game with 15 points and nine rebounds. Chadwick knows he has something special in the post when Crook is down there.
“She’s really good,” he said. “Ty is a girl who can put up a double-double any night, and if she would have hit her free throws tonight she would have had big points.”
Crook was only 3 for 10 from the charity stripe, a place where the team needs to improve. As a team, Marshall went 14-30, shooting just 46.7 percent from the foul line.
Crook had to be the main offensive presence. Senior forward and team captain Chantelle Handy, who added 10 points, played sparingly in the first half after picking up her second foul with 16:20 left in the first half. She only played nine minutes each half but was still the team’s second leading scorer.
Even though he saw positives in the game, Chadwick said his team has a long way to go before its season-opening game Nov. 13 against Appalachian State.
“We made about 4,872 mistakes, so we have plenty to do tomorrow,” Chadwick said.
Rebounding was one of the main points he said the team needs to concentrate on.
“We had opportunities to get rebounds, but we we’re content on being blocked out, but that is something we can fix and we will,” Chadwick said.
This is the first and only exhibition game this season, and the team is excited to get the season underway. With the team playing each other in practice, Mitchell said it is great to finally go up against a different jersey for once.
“We were just waiting to play somebody else, I get sick and tired of playing my teammates,” Mitchell said.
Kyle Hobstetter can be contacted at hobstetter@marshall.edu.
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