SMC BASKETBALL: Belles ready for Knights
By JOE LINDSLEY
Sports Writer
Nasty winter weather caused the cancellation of Saint Mary's much anticipated opportunity for revenge against Alma College on Wednesday night. The Belles will now play two home games this weekend. The Calvin Knights come to the Angela Athletic Facility for the Belles' Parents' Day on Saturday, and the Alma game will be made up on Sunday.
"Our coach e-mailed us at 2 a.m. [Wednesday] to tell us the game was cancelled," said freshman Emily Creachbaum.
Because the Belles were so intently looking forward to the re-match against Alma, which beat them 66-52 Jan. 5, they were not thrilled to have the game cancelled.
"I was disappointed because I was ready to play. We really want to play Alma," said freshman Katie Miller. "Now we just have to have the mentality to beat both teams instead of just one."
"But we're out to beat Alma even more [than Calvin]," she added. "I think we have to shift our focus. We really want to play Alma bad, but we have to focus on Calvin. "Hopefully we'll be on a motivation streak [after the Calvin game], whether we win or play pretty well, and hopefully that will carry into Alma," Creachbaum said.
The Belles lost to the Knights 75-52 Jan. 9 and are expecting two tough contests this weekend. By the end of the first half of the game at Calvin, Saint Mary's was down by 14 points. In order to win both Saturday and Sunday, it is imperative for the Belles that their offense starts off strong without allowing their opponents to run up the score early on.
"We need to get our offense going," said Creachbaum, who knows that their offense has been relatively weak. "Our defense is more natural than our offense," she said.
The Belles must also be more aggressive when they go after rebounds. They were out-rebounded 48-33 against Calvin and 47-31 against Alma.
Coach Suzanne Smith gave the Belles Wednesday night off, so they believe they will be rested for the busy basketball weekend ahead. Additionally, their confidence will be given a boost by the presence of many of their parents at the game on Saturday.
The Calvin game will be Saint Mary's first home game in two weeks, and they are hoping to have a large fan base to support them as they return to play in the Angela Athletic Facility.
"We need our fans there and we them need to be rowdy," Miller said.
All Sports Stories for Friday, February 1, 2002
