SMC BASKETBALL: Belles confident heading into Adrian game
By JOE HETTLER
Sports Writer
When Saint Mary's faces off against Adrian tonight, it will be a battle between a team with confidence and a team that has been struggling.
The Belles are the confident team coming off a 65-61 win over Olivet College on Saturday and winners of two of their last three while Adrian has lost two straight games.
The reason for the Belles' recent success has been defense and rebounding, according to head coach Suzanne Smith.
"The main thing is that we've played great defense and rebounding," said Smith. "We've done a much better job the last couple of weeks of boxing out and going to get the rebound."
While the Belles were out-rebounded last game, they feel they can improve on that against Adrian.
"In our defense we do a lot of rotating around," said Smith. "Many times that leaves someone open and we just really talked about going back and finding your person and making sure everybody's matched up and they box out their person and put a body on them."
Aside from rebounding, the Belles will rely on another outstanding performance from freshman forward Emily Creachbaum. Creachbaum scored 26 points against Olivet, which included 11-15 shooting from the field.
Creachbaum's performance was good enough to earn her an honorable mention for MIAA Player of the Week honors.
"She's just real consistent," said Smith. "She's not trying to do too much but it seems like the opponent's defense is giving her some great opportunity's and she's taking advantage of everything."
The Belles are hoping to continue playing well and pick up some victories before heading into the MIAA tournament on Feb. 19.
"We're focused on Wednesday night first, said Smith. "We haven't really gone to Saturday yet. But tomorrow night it's a great opportunity. I know one of the team's words today was revenge because it was a close game last time. So we really want this one tomorrow night."
Contact Joe Hettler at jhettler@nd.edu.
All Sports Stories for Wednesday, February 13, 2002
