Tigers improve to 6-2 on the season with win

Monday, December 20, 2010

GREENCASTLE -- Coming off of an unexpected loss to Millikin a week ago, DePauw University's women's team resumed its winning ways with a 66-47 win over visiting Elmhurst College.

The Tigers grabbed the lead fifteen seconds into the contest and were never threatened by the Bluejays, scoring the first seven points of the game. The closest Elmhurst would come in the game would be within the opening four minutes as they trailed by five at two separate times.

DePauw's defense throttled the visitors, forcing 14 turnovers and only allowing 13 points in the first half, none after the 7:26 mark. At the same time, the Tiger offense scored in flurries, including a 15-0 run to end the half over the final 6:25.

With a sizable lead, the Tigers were able to move players in and out of the game without much falloff. Elmhurst had a better showing in the second half with the constant personnel changes but would never be able to seriously threaten the #15 ranked hosts.

After a solid outing to shake off the Millikin loss, DePauw head coach Kris Huffman was satisfied with Saturday's performance.

"Coming out of finals week, it was a tough week academically and the girls are exhausted, and so this is a great win. I thought we were a little bit better defensively than we were at Millikin," Huffman said.

"We didn't shoot the ball well in the second half. I wish we could have done that a little bit better. But we defended fairly well and we rebounded well, so it's nice to get back on track in those two areas."

"I thought we had a good intensity in the first half. We substituted a bit more freely in the second half which hurt us defensively, so we need to keep bringing the bench along in our defensive performance but I thought top seven performed very well," Huffman added.

Part of the development process will be to continue to incorporate the bench players into the line-up, a task that's easier said than done at some points.

"We still need to develop our depth. We've had such a tough schedule to this point where we haven't had a lot of opportunity to play the bench extended and important minutes and we tried to do that today. We see that we need to still gain some confidence there and gain some ground, especially defensively," Huffman said.

The holidays haven't started yet for DePauw. A trip to Alma College of Michigan on Tuesday is the last game before a quick Christmas recess and it will be another chance to possibly get the bench some experience.

That may or may not be the case, as Huffman is aware of.

"Well, we hope so. You never know. We'll prepare exactly the same way for every opponent this year. We tend to get everybody's best performance and everyone's excited to go home for Christmas so you never know what you're going to get," Huffman said.

"We will continue to work our tails off defensively, rebounding and hopefully get a couple of good night's sleep before we head up there after this final's period."

At DePauw

Elmhurst 13 32 -- 47

DePauw 37 29 -- 66

Team Stats

Shooting -- Elmhurst 19-51 (37%), DePauw 26-66 (39%)

Three Pointers -- Elmhurst 1-6, DePauw 6-24

Free Throws -- Elmhurst 8-10, DePauw 8-11

Rebounds -- Elmhurst 27 (7 Off.), DePauw 46 (21 Off.)

Assists -- Elmhurst 12, DePauw 17

Turnovers -- Elmhurst 19, DePauw 18

Individual Scoring (DePauw)

Aldrich 15, Walker 11, Mathews 10, Goff 9, Ross 8, Pearson 4, Freestone 4, Mullen 3, Gasaway 2

Next game -- DePauw visits Alma College on Tuesday at 5:00 PM.