The women’s basketball team (0-1 overall) opened its season on the road against Syracuse on Tuesday night. The Leopards could not match the pace of the Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouse, falling by a score of 75-41.
Going into the game, senior forward Kayla Drummond knew that the team had to start the game off aggressively to match Syracuse’s physicality.
“We did a good job of playing with pace and pushing the ball in transition,” Drummond said.
The Leopards started off strong in the beginning of the first quarter, with Drummond contributing to the effort with an assist and a layup. However, the Orange took a multi-score lead (20-14) heading into the second quarter.
During the second quarter, Syracuse continued to pull away, shooting 50 percent from the floor while the Leopards shot only 19 percent. Heading into the locker room at the end of the first half, Syracuse held a commanding 40-21 lead.
Drummond partially attributed the Leopards’ struggles to “shots just not falling for us.”
“That happens sometimes with basketball, but at least we know that we are able to create scoring opportunities for ourselves,” Drummond said.
One of the key factors contributing to Lafayette’s loss was the rebounding game. Syracuse out-rebounded Lafayette by a margin of 58-27.
Junior guard Hallee Smith acknowledged the challenge of facing such a large school for the first game of the season.
“Syracuse’s rebound game gave them second-chance opportunities on offense and limited our ability to put more shots up,” Smith said. “Our plan was to drive them out with box outs, but their size advantage got the best of us.”
Smith emphasized that the team’s approach coming out of halftime was to play hard for the rest of the game.
“Though the deficit at this point was 19 points, we were looking at the play in front of us,” Smith said. “We always have a score-stop-score mentality, so we were staying focused on what we could control.”
The third quarter resulted in 26 more points scored by the Orange, while the Leopards managed to put just nine more points on the board.
The Leopards were able to hold Syracuse to nine points in the fourth quarter and put up 11 points of their own, the only quarter where the Leopards outscored the Orange.
Looking ahead to their upcoming game against East Tennessee State University tomorrow, the Leopards are hoping to put together a more complete performance.
“We need to step it up on offense and defense,” Smith said. “We always have room for improvement, and we can really use this game against Syracuse to learn what we can do better for the next game.”
Rebounding will be another key for the team to focus on for East Tennessee.
“We need to play like we know how to,” Smith said.
“Continuing to move the ball, and taking open shots as well as attacking open lanes will help us be successful on the offensive side of the ball,” Drummond added.
Despite the team’s challenging start, Smith remains optimistic about the team’s progress.
“We knew Syracuse was going to be a tough matchup, but we like these games because they give us the opportunity to work on ourselves and our game against big-time teams,” Smith said.
