Congratulations to
Coach Anji Weisenfluh. Monday’s playoff win was the 300th victory of her career at EOU.
EOU finally got
things shifted into overdrive in their first round playoff vs Northwest
Christian. If anything, the complaint
would be not getting the game put away sooner.
The Mountaineers are a team that has excelled in the final ten minutes
this season. They have not been
particularly sharp in the first half of games.
EOU owned the game on the floor for most of the first half, aided in
some part to the multitude of NCU mistakes.
However, EOU managed to let NCU back into the game and the score was all
knotted up, 37-37, at halftime. It remained a tie game off and on until the
midway point of the second half when the Mountaineers began to impose their will. EOU showed a lot of flash, and got some
clutch shots, steals, assists, and rebounds from every player who took the
court. The only thing EOU didn’t do well
was shoot free throws, but if there was ever a time to go into that slump,
Monday was the best night. Keep those for when they are needed. J
From the beginning,
EOU showed the ability to toy with NCU.
Laan had a deft cut across the baseline for a layup as the shot clock
expired. A couple plays later, Redd
busted straight up the lane untouched after waiting out the shot clock in a
drive reminiscent of Edwards or Eackles for the guys team. The play that really got the game into second
gear was a steal by Osborne who broke quick back down court, feeding Redd for
the easy two. Osborne was hammered hard
10 seconds later going for a defensive rebound.
EOU got into bonus in foul shots fairly early, but didn’t convert any of
the 1-1 first half free throw attempts.
That was fine enough because EOU hit seven first half
three-pointers. Osborne hit three threes
by herself, which was only one less than her entire season total. Moss hit a timely three-pointer late in the
first half and had some crafty assists and inside drives.
Early in the second
half, Osborne hit a three-pointer to break a 38-38 tie, and the next trip down
the court Redd hit a three on a look-back assist from Newcomb’s inside
drive. Newcomb was particularly swift
inside throughout the game. Hill, Laan,
Parrish and Larson all looked good.
Newcomb hit a three-pointer that broke a 52-52 tie. No sooner than NCU crossed half court on
their next possession, they traveled and EOU then took the final momentum shift
to put the game away.
Southern Oregon, who
beat fifth-seeded Evergreen on Tuesday and will come to Quinn for the round two
matchup, is not going to have an easy time trying to stop seven different paths
of attack from EOU. However, EOU may
need to bear up. SOU had a similar night
vs Evergreen. Freshman guard Durland
dropped in 30 points, pulled in nine rebounds and blocked two shots for the
Raiders. Durland is only the fourth
guard in a deeply talented rotation. SOU
has two of the top six scorers in the conference in Carly Meister and Kristin
Schoenherr. SOU finished two games
behind the Mounties in the conference standings, but one game better in the
overall season records. Defensively, SOU
held Evergreen to 36% shooting. However,
EOU held Evergreen to the same total on Saturday night, and also held the
Geoducks scoreless from outside on fifteen three-point attempts. SOU managed to beat Evergreen defensively as
well, which EOU could not. It may prove
to be a closer matchup than a lot of the recent EOU-SOU matchups.
EOU has a big seven
game win streak going against SOU. The last meeting in Quinn was December 20,
when the Mounties won 102-78. Thirty of
those points were thanks to senior guard extraordinaire Brittney Newcomb. At that time, SOU was ranked #14 in NAIA D2,
and EOU was #24. The next night EOU beat
#12 ranked OIT and stormed out to a comfortable lead in the conference
standings, which they held on to during a few stumbles down the stretch. Last year, also in the second round of the
conference playoffs, EOU hammered SOU 83-55, helped out by six different
players combining for eleven three-pointers.
All the home teams
won on the opening night of the conference tournament. Oregon Tech Owls handily
defeated Corban in Klamath Falls, setting up a matchup with third-seed College
of Idaho. The Yotes defeated Northwest
in Caldwell. The Yotes are only 5-7 on
the road, while the Owls are 14-2 at home.
One of the Owls two home losses was to College of Idaho, who swept the
season series.
CCC playoffs :: EOU
Men’s Basketball
On Wednesday, the EOU men played the opposite game than the ladies did
on Tuesday. EOU got off to a 7-0 lead and stayed up on College of Idaho for the
first ten minutes of the game. Beyond
that, things were not too pretty for the Mountaineers. Just after halftime, EOU pulled within 5 points, but then the Yotes
went on the prowl, feasting off EOU shooting themselves in the foot with
turnovers and poor execution in the face of the Yotes press. One field goal in a eight minute stretch of
the second half is not the way to beat the best team in the conference. The Yotes stretched it to a 21 point lead
with just over ten minutes to play. EOU
did not go away quietly. Eackles, in
particular, was hot shooting and Wood pulled in a fair number of the missed Idaho
shots of the second half. In addition to
many second half turnovers, EOU couldn’t stay out of foul trouble. College of Idaho didn’t cut EOU any slack and
hit 22 of 24 second half free throws to hold the lead. After the ten minute mark, Idaho hit a couple
big threes and pushed out a lead of 25 points.
Despite Idaho not using much of the clock on their possessions, EOU
could only go on short runs and never made any serious attempt to get back in
the game. On the last play of the game,
Edwards missed an open dunk. That pretty well told the story of the last game
of the season for the Mountaineer men’s team. The Yotes won by a final of
92-65. It was the Yotes first playoff
win since 2006, breaking a streak of nice straight playoff losses. Their current winning streak is up to 13
games, which is good for second most in team history. The 1955-56 Yotes won 18 straight. That team featured Elgin Baylor. How many people knew that basketball hall of
famer played for the Yotes???
The biggest bright spot for EOU may have been for Kevin
Attila. The senior had a game high 21
point performance with a perfect shooting percentage on 6-6 from the field,
including five three-pointers, and a perfect 4-4 from the free throw line. He also added a steal, an assist and two
rebounds for an otherworldly efficiency rating of 24.0.
In the other three CCC playoff games, the road teams were
victorious. Oregon Tech defeated the two-seed Concordia Cavaliers in Portland. Oregon Tech will travel to College of Idaho
on Saturday. Southern Oregon lost at
home to Northwest Christian. Warner
Pacific lost at home to Northwest. Northwest and Northwest Christian will meet in
the semi finals on Saturday. I presume
this will be in Kirkland, buit neither the teams’ websites nor the Cascade
Conference website feature an updated schedule, or a list of seeds, at this
point. Both teams finished tied for
fifth place in the conference.
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