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SCOTS SCOOP – Jan. 24, 2007 – Vol. 7, No. 25
SCOTS RALLY TO BEAT FORESTERS
Trailing 33-25 at halftime at Lake Forest Tuesday night, the Fighting
Scots were in serious jeopardy of going 0-3 on their three-game road trip.
But with their backs to the wall and their postseason hopes hanging by a
thread, the Scots responded with a brilliant half of defensive basketball
and emerged with a key 55-53 victory over the Foresters.
“If you’d have asked me before the game, I’d have said that Lake Forest
was the hottest team in the league,” said Monmouth coach Terry Glasgow.
“They had just won on the road at Carroll and Ripon, so they were playing
well, they were playing at home and they had momentum.”
Not to mention an eight-point halftime lead. But the Scots scored the
first five points of the second half, and the fight was on. Monmouth
slowly battled back and took its first lead of the night on junior Scott
Scholten’s three-pointer with nine minutes left.
After the Foresters had taken a 51-50 lead, senior Raun Singleton
(Roseville, Ill./Roseville) made a jumper and two free throws on
consecutive trips. The free throws came with 3:51 left, and the only point
the rest of the way was a foul toss at the 1:19 mark by junior Joe Terwelp
(Quincy, Ill./Notre Dame), who netted a game-high 17 points. Following
Terwelp's miss on the second attempt, the Foresters had two possessions.
Junior Blaise Rogers (Forest City, Ill./Midwest Central) made a key steal
to end the first one, and the Foresters then failed to get off a good shot
on their other, despite getting the ball back with nine seconds left.
Singleton added 12 points to the winning effort and Rogers scored 10. Lake
Forest was just 7-of-24 from the field in the second half.
That defensive intensity was actually present for most of the road trip,
which also included losses at St. Norbert last Friday and at Beloit on
Saturday. The Green Knights finished strong to top Monmouth 68-56, while
the Bucs gained some revenge for a loss to to the Scots eight days earlier
by winning 74-67.
“We played really good defense all weekend,” said Glasgow. “All of our
games were very typical of what the whole league will be about the whole
year. The difference between each team is so miniscule that most games are
going to come down to who makes the fewest mistakes and doesn’t allow any
big scoring runs.”
Glasgow saw such a run in the Beloit loss, when the Bucs broke open a
37-37 tie with a 19-4 surge. It was keyed by guard Mike Dowden, who scored
13 of his career-high 34 points during the decisive stretch.
“He wasn’t bad here (12 points), but up there he was great,” said Glasgow
of Dowden. “He really extended his shot and made some NBA threes. If we
had it to do over again, we’d have extended our zone on him.”
Monmouth later closed within five points, but the Bucs sealed the season
split by making 7-of-8 free throws, including five by Dowden, whose
previous career high of 23 points had come the night before.
The Scots were led by Rogers and Terwelp, who each scored 20 points and
combined for 15 rebounds. Terwelp was 8-of-9 from the floor in 30 minutes
of action.
Against St. Norbert, the Scots scored just six points in the final 7:55 to
squander a 50-48 lead. Monmouth was beaten 39-28 on the boards and
committed five more turnovers than the Green Knights, who were led by
Nathan Zepnick's career-high 21 points. Singleton and Rogers netted 15 and
11 points, respectively, to pace the Scots.
After the two tough trips in a five-day span, Glasgow was fairly upbeat,
and his team’s defensive effort was a big reason why.
“Our defense against Lake Forest was really significant,” said Glasgow,
who said the Scots played zone the entire game against all three
opponents. “We knew that especially against St. Norbert and Lake Forest,
both teams are very deliberate and really work the clock. We knew we’d
have to play defense for 30-35 seconds on each possession, and we felt the
best way to do that with a high level of consistency was to play zone.”
Individually, Glasgow said Terwelp’s return to the lineup “made a
difference,” and he praised the play of senior Caleb Bennett (Avon,
Ill./Avon), who “was a catalyst for us. He runs around out there like a
fuzzy terrier, and he made some good things happen. Andy Moore
(Marseilles, Ill./Ottawa) hit two big threes (against LFC) after a rough
first half. I was in his face a couple of times, and he responded.”
Glasgow added, “Blaise (Rogers) has been our most consistent player since
break. He’s showing more maturity on the floor and more leadership, and
I’ve been really pleased with his performance.”
Rogers has the most rebounds, steals and assists on the team, has scored
in double figures in seven straight games and has made 27 of his last 29
free throws.
The Scots are off until Grinnell comes to a town next Tuesday. The men’s
game will tip-off first, starting at 5 p.m.
SCOTS CAN’T GET OVER THE HUMP ON ROAD SWING
In the little picture, Monmouth’s 0-3 record in its games the past week
did nothing to improve its season. But in the grand scheme of things,
coach Melissa Jones hopes she is able to point to her team’s performance
in the trio of games as “a step in the right direction.”
“Three or four years ago, we were losing to the playoff teams in the
league by 20 points on the road,” said Jones.
The gap has closed, and likely playoff teams St. Norbert and Lake Forest
had to scramble to defeat the Scots 88-81 and 68-57, respectively. The
latter game was closer than the final score, as Monmouth led by a point
with seven minutes remaining and was just down three with 3:30 left.
That was when senior guard Andrea Durante came up big for the Foresters,
who entered the game ranked No. 25 in the nation. Durante converted an
old-fashioned three-point play, then drove in for a lay-up after making a
steal to push the margin to eight points. Monmouth would get no closer
than six in the final three minutes.
Sophomore Melissa Gorski (Arlington Heights, Ill./Buffalo Grove) paced the
Scots with 18 points and junior Ashley Yeast (Sciota, Ill./West Prairie),
who has now claimed the No. 1 spot in the nation in rebounding, had 15
points and 14 boards. Senior Laura Jahn (Palos Park, Ill./Stagg) added 10
points and nine rebounds.
Durante totaled a team-high 11 points for the 14-2 Foresters, and Jones
used her type of late production as an element her players can put to use
in the future.
“Four seniors got a lot of minutes in Lake Forest’s rotation, and we have
only one guard who is an upperclassman,” said Jones. “These games are
giving us a chance to see how the other teams get it done, and hopefully
our players will apply these lessons when they’re upperclassmen.”
She added, “Three of the top four teams in the league we’ve taken right
down to the last five or six minutes at their place. We just couldn’t
follow through at the end. Against Lake Forest, we had some good shots
down the stretch. They just didn’t fall.”
The bright spot from the Foresters’ games, said Jones, was the team’s
re-dedication to solid defense.
“We didn’t play very well defensively over the weekend,” she said of
surrendering 88 points to St. Norbert and falling 83-68 to Beloit. “We
came home and really practiced defense, and I thought the Lake Forest game
was the best defense we had played all season.”
In the St. Norbert game, both teams had strong offensive showings. The
contest was fairly even statistically, but the Green Knights made six more
three-pointers than the Scots. Both teams shot more than 50 percent from
the floor and from beyond the arc, but St. Norbert’s 10-of-17 accuracy on
treys, including a 4-of-7 night from Linsey Propson, helped throw the game
the host’s way. Propson’s teammate, Ellen Hake, also proved to be a
difference-maker, scoring a game-high 22 points and collecting 10
rebounds.
Monmouth's regular contributors were again solid, with Jahn netting a
team-high 21 points and freshman Elise Waldorf (Glasford, Ill./Canton)
scoring 17. Yeast posted another double-double with 10 points and 11
rebounds, and she helped hold SNC star Bianca White to just nine points
and five boards. Gorski added 10 points and senior Mallory Mulvihill
(Palatine, Ill./Palatine) returned to action and dished out five assists
to go with five points.
“Ashley did a great job for us defensively against St. Norbert,” praised
Jones. “She continues to get rebounds in all of our games. She’s
definitely got a target on her. The scouting reports that the other teams
have say ‘Keep 33 off the boards.’ But against Lake Forest, she had a
double-double by halftime.”
The lone non-top four team of Monmouth’s road trip actually pinned the worst
loss on the Scots. The Bucs led by double-digits for the final eight
minutes as they broke away from a slim 46-45 lead midway through the half.
Both teams made an equal number of baskets, but the Bucs had five more
three-pointers than the Scots, including five by Angie Meehan, and they
also made 10 more points at the foul line, including a 10-of-11 effort by
Mary Parker.
Meehan netted a game-high 23 points, while the Scots were paced by Gorski
and Yeast, who each scored 17. Yeast added 13 rebounds. Freshman Lynsey
Barnard (Pekin, Ill./Pekin) came off the bench to score a career-high 13,
while Waldorf added 11.
Of Gorski’s play, which has included double-digit scoring in the last 13
games, Jones said, “Melissa has done a phenomenal job for us. She’s really
stepped up when we’ve needed someone. She’s one of the top sophomores in
the league, if not the top one.”
Up next for the Scots on Tuesday is rematch of an overtime loss from
December. Grinnell, which edged Monmouth 77-74, will be in town for a 7
p.m. game at Glennie Gym.
PLAYOFFS? YOU TALKIN’ ABOUT PLAYOFFS?
Easy there, Jim Mora. A Fighting Scots team in the Midwest Conference’s
four-team tournament is not as far-fetched as you might think.
Sporting 4-6 and 3-7 records, respectively, both the men’s and women’s
teams are on the outside of the playoff races looking in. But the
remaining schedules of both teams are identical. They play five of their
final six games at home, and the lone road contest is at Illinois College,
which is in ninth place in both standings.
“We’ve got to do something at home,” said Terry Glasgow of the final
quarter of the season.
It’s Glasgow’s belief that tiebreakers will be needed to settle some of
the MWC playoff spots. His team already owns an edge over Ripon thanks to
a win in what was the teams’ only meeting of the year. Monmouth can also
gain the upper hand on Carroll by winning again when the teams play on
Feb. 3.
Currently, four teams are atop the league standings at 6-3, with St.
Norbert in the fifth spot at 6-4. Monmouth has remaining home games
against three of the four 6-3 teams.
Mora’s “Playoffs?” rant might be a little more appropriate for the women’s
situation, as the fourth-place team, Lawrence, holds a 4.5-game lead on
the Scots.
But, as coach Melissa Jones said, “We have a lot of home games left, and
we owe some revenge to most of the teams that we’ll be playing here. That
should give us a little bit of extra incentive.”
It would not be out of the question for the Scots to at least rise to the
upper half of the league, as they trail Beloit by 2.5 games. Monmouth
should be able to stay with the tougher trio of teams remaining on its
schedule, and they should enter the other three contests as the favored
team.
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