Cold-shooting Trojan women fall to UNC Pembroke

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on November 22, 2014 11:22 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

MOUNT OLIVE -- During its 2-1 road swing, the University of Mount Olive crashed the boards for second-chance opportunities and fueled its offense with good pressure defense.

All of that disappeared Saturday afternoon.

The Trojan women shot a woeful 16 percent from the floor, converted just two field goals inside the paint and dropped a 51-37, non-conference decision to UNC Pembroke at Kornegay Arena.

"Every game is different, every team is different, but I haven't seen one go this way," UMO head coach Wendy Lee said. "We'll just have to research the film, try something new and fix things that weren't working ... just try to be a work in progress."

Then shred the film afterwards.

UNC Pembroke, picked 11th in the preseason Peach Belt Conference poll, played a packed-in zone that limited UMO's touches inside. Despite the congestion in the lane and bodies constantly falling like bowling pins from the physical play, the Trojans managed to get some decent looks at the basket.

Nothing would fall.

UMO's offense produced just three field goals -- all 3-pointers.

"That's the way we play defense," UNCP head coach John Haskins said. "We slough man-to-man and try to keep the ball out of the lane as much as we can. They do such a good job of running their offense, setting back screens and doing back cuts, we really feel like we had to play inside-out.

"We had to help on big girl (Arieal Johnson) and do a good job on Ty (Wallace), which I thought we did."

Coming off consecutive double-doubles, Wallace collected just four points -- all in the first half -- and pulled down a team-best 11 rebounds. Johnson, who had 18 points against Pfeiffer on Tuesday, scored just five points and snared four rebounds in 13 minutes.

Shy'lia Buie added six points on two 3-pointers.

The Braves held the Trojan women to 16-percent shooting (9 of 56), including a miserable 9.4 percent in the first half. Pembroke owned advantages in the paint (18-2), points off turnovers (19-2) and bench scoring (25-20).

"I thought our effort was really good defensively," said Haskins, whose team controlled the defensive glass 35-25 and finished with a 44-43 edge in total rebounds.

UNCP reeled off nine of the game's first 10 points.

Mount Olive climbed to within 12-8 on a Rachel Fehl free throw, but could get no closer. The Braves (1-1) tallied 18 of the next 25 points to build a comfortable 30-15 lead as the Trojans' defense softened due to disappointment on the offensive end.

Wallace hit two free throws just before intermission.

The Braves extended their lead to as much as 19 points in the second half, and eventually claimed their second straight victory over the Trojan women.