Oakland women turn Southern Utah inside-out
UP AND IN: Oakland's Bethany Watterworth puts up two of her 23 points thursday in the Golden Grizzlies' 68-39 win over Southern Utah. Courtesy Photo.
BY DAN STICKRADT
SENIOR EDITOR
dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
ROCHESTER HILLS — When Bethany Watterworth touches the ball in the early stages of a game, that opens up much of the floor for Oakland University.
In five games this season, Watterworth has reached double figures by halftime and Oakland is 4-1 in those contests.
That happened again Thursday night at the O’Rena in the Golden Grizzlies Summit League opener against Southern Utah. Watterworth had 14 by the break and finished with 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting with six rebounds and five assists in leading the Golden Grizzlies to a 68-39 victory.
“We just came out and were really excited. This was our first league game, so we just really wanted to make a statement (to the rest of the league),” said Watterworth. “Everyone’s playing tonight in the league. We just wanted to send a message and we came out fired up and ready to go.”
Oakland (4-3, 1-0) has never lost to Southern Utah, moving to 13-0 at home since the two moved to Division I in the 1990s.
Redshirt freshman guard Elizabeth Hamlet nailed a trio of three-pointers and ended a career night with 13 points, three assists and two steals. Brittany Carnago had a strong second half during her first league game in nearly two years with nine points, six rebounds and two blocked shots, while Brittany Nelson came off the bench and provided a fine floor game which consisted of six points, six rebounds and just one turnover.
“I just thank our post (players) for pulling in the defense and kicking it back out with beautiful passes. They had some nice assists,” said Hamlet, crediting the inside play of Watterworth, Carnago and Anna Patritto (four assists) for the team’s perimeter shooting.
Watterworth fed Hamlet on two of the 3-pointers and caused the Thunderbirds to sag into the paint throughout.
“Everyone knows that (Watterworth) is one of the best players in the Summit League,” said Hamlet. “Automatically coming in, she has all eyes on her. That opens it up for all of us.”
Oakland had assists on 24 of 26 field goals and 10 players reached the scoring column. The Grizzlies also committed a season-low with 14 turnovers, as many of newcomers are finally starting to gel with the veterans.
Six of the 11 players that saw minutes played in their first Summit League game.
“One of our goals is to have few turnovers every game,” said Oakland coach Beckie Francis. “Since we had that flurry (in the past few games), we really worked on that in practice. We brought in our scout team and we had them go after us, double-team us and beay us up. We tried to take care of the ball after all of that and I think we did (in this game).”
Oakland held Southern Utah (2-5, 0-1) to just 29.2 percent shooting in the first half and 24.5 percent shooting (13-for-53) for the game. The Thunderbirds tied the game at 2-2 with 18:39 left in the first half before Oakland went on a 14-2 run to build a 16-4 advantage.
Southern Utah never closed the gap to fewer than nine points the rest of the way.
Oakland led 36-19 at the half and forced 19 turnovers in the game. The lead ballooned to as many as 29 points in the last two minutes.
Francis said that the recent intensity in practice spilled over into this game.
“What was nice about tonight’s game was the way we practiced the past two days just kind of rolled over into this game,” offered Francis. “The players worked so hard and were very effective in practice and it just carried over. I really enjoyed watching our defensive intensity.”
Oakland continued to swarm the Thunderbirds at the start of the second half, opening with a 17-4 run to build a 49-23 advantage with 12:15 to play and pout the game out of reach.
Challis Pascucci finished with 10 points and a team-high five rebounds and Andrea Jones also scored 10 for Southern Utah.
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Category: Oakland University
