Lakeland College

Muskies use team effort in victory over Marian

Athletics - posted on 1/21/2009

The Lakeland College women's basketball team had 11 different players score points tonight as the Muskies routed Marian 71-52 in a Northern Athletics Conference contest Wednesday night in Sheboygan.

The victory was hardly in doubt as the Muskies (11-5, 6-3 NAC) grabbed the first lead of the night and never trailed. An eight point deficit with 15 minutes remaining in the first half proved to be the closest Marian could pull to. The Lakeland defense had its way with the Sabres, holding them to 20 first half points on 6-of-25 shooting (24 percent) as the Muskies held on to a 34-20 halftime lead.

The second half was more of the same as Marian (3-11, 2-7 NAC) was able to knock the deficit down to 14 points three separate times early in the half. The Muskies were able to withstand any Marian drives, keeping the lead near 20 points for the majority of the half in the 19 point victory.

"Our shot selection in the second half really helped us pull away," said Lakeland head coach Teri Johnson. "We kind of got a little sloppy at the end of the first half. We felt we needed to tighten up our shot selection and our defense coming out of halftime. I was happy with how our guards handled the ball and looked for high percentage shots."

Chelsea Coenen (Wrightstown, Wis.) and Mary Dennewitz (Chicago, Ill.) led the Muskie offensive charge, scoring 15 and 14 points, respectively. Coenen and KC Blahnik (Gladstone, Mich.) tied for the Muskie rebounding lead with six apiece. The Lakeland reserves outscored the Marian bench 42 to four in the effort.

"So many players did a lot for us tonight in the minutes they played," said Johnson. "Chelsea and Mary led us in points tonight, but we had other players that when you look at their stats, they made some important contributions."

Lakeland forced the Sabres into 24 turnovers and was able to convert those into 27 points. The Muskies connected on 44 percent (26-59) of their shots on the night while holding Marian to 36 percent shooting on 12 fewer shot attempts.

"We've been taking a good look at points off turnovers," Johnson said. "That has been hurting us especially in the last two games. We came into tonight with the thought of forcing turnovers and let's take advantage of that on our end. I thought we did a much better job of controlling the ball. Turning the ball over 15 times tonight is an improvement, and we'll take that right now."

Lakeland returns to action this weekend as both the men and women travel to MSOE Saturday night. Tip-off for the women is scheduled for 6 p.m.

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