UMO Women

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on February 20, 2015 1:48 PM

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MOUNT OLIVE -- It's been a season filled with missed opportunities and bad breaks for the University of Mount Olive women's basketball team.

And it looked like it was headed that way again Thursday night.

Emmanuel had clawed back into the game after trailing by double figures and Ashley Skelton was at the free throw line with a chance to make it a one possession game. But then Emmanuel's Skye Rogers anticipated a potential rebound too early, lost her balance and fell into the key.

No free throw, Mount Olive ball.

Ty Wallace knocked down a free throw and the Trojans eventually sealed a 58-54 victory over conference newcomer Emmanuel and avenged an early-season overtime loss.

Trojans coach Wendy Lee viewed the play as a lucky break.

But that's not the case if you ask Trojans center Arieal Johnson.

"Oh I made her do that," Johnson said. "I leaned into her in the first half and almost made her step over the line, and then I tried it there and got her to go over."

Johnson's display of basketball IQ impressed her coach.

"Wow, I didn't know that," Lee said after hearing Johnson's strategy. "That's impressive. Looks like I've got another coach on my hands."

Regardless if coaching is in Johnson's future, she showed she's is a pretty darn good player on Thursday. The sophomore transfer had a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

Her frontcourt mate Ty Wallace scored 17 points and had seven boards against a Lions team that doesn't give up many big games to post players. Emmanuel focuses its defensive strategy on collapsing on post players in the middle and forcing perimeter players to make shots to beat them. Despite executing their strategy, the Trojans still found ways to feed Wallace and Johnson in the post.

"We actually thought we were going to have a lot of trouble getting the ball to them because of how Emmanuel plays," Lee said. "We know the post is our strength right now but we knew we didn't want to just force is in there. Our perimeter players did a good job getting the ball to them and at times Arieal had three or four people on her, but her and Ty just did a great job playing through it."

After the Trojans have consistently let teams back into games over the past month, Lee knew the Lions would make a run.

She was right. Emmanuel climbed back into the game on two separate occasions to give the Trojans a run.

But both times the Trojans took the Lions best shot and held on. It's a mark of growth and maturity she didn't see at the beginning of the year.

"We've allowed teams to get back in the games after we have been in good positions lately and we knew they were going to come back and do that tonight, but tonight we just had a different mentality. We weren't going to let them beat us that way again tonight."

Even when the Trojans weren't hitting shots, their effort on the glass and defense never left them, and kept them in the lead.

They outrebounded the Lions 48-37 and consistently forced them to make tough shots.

For a while in the second half the Lions did that, shooting 7-14 in the first 10 minutes.

But the Trojans continued playing the same way they had been and Emmanuel made just four shots the next 10 minutes of the half.

"It wasn't a change in strategy tonight," Lee said. "It was just a change in mentality and intensity that we haven't had a lot of in the past. I think these girls are finally starting to understand their roles and how good we can be."