The Fort Lewis women’s basketball team’s 2-3 zone worked wonders on Saturday afternoon, as the Skyhawks notched their first victory of the season.
Fort Lewis responded to Northern New Mexico College’s 67-point outing on Friday by cruising to a 58-39 win on Saturday at Whalen Gymnasium.
After the win, Fort Lewis improved to 1-3. Northern New Mexico fell to 1-2.
Fort Lewis (1-3) held Northern New Mexico (1-2) to 26% shooting from the field and 13% shooting from the 3-point line.
“We said, ‘You know what, let's just pressure them everywhere and just try to take them out of any action that they want to run,’” Skyhawks coach Taylor Harris said. “We had a lot of success with that. We made them uncomfortable. That's just credit to our team really buying into knowing that if we defend the right way then the balls going to start to find its way in the basket and that's what happened.”
Fort Lewis shot 30% from the field, 28% from 3-point range and 75% from the free-throw line.
After scoring zero points the day before, sophomore Kate Gallery had a breakout game. Gallery stepped up to help fill in for senior forward Kelsey Sorenson, who injured her knee in Friday’s game. Gallery scored a career-high 14 points on 5 of 17 shooting and 4 of 11 shooting from the 3-point line. Gallery also had six rebounds for the Skyhawks.
“Credit to Kate for continuing to believe in herself,” Harris said. “It can be really easy to stop shooting and being kind of scared to shoot, but she didn't really have that. She just kept shooting and just kept believing in herself. Her smile when that first one went in was incredible. Then she just kind of caught fire.”
Harris said team doctors think Sorenson suffered a potential LCL sprain. Harris said he wanted to be cautious and let her heal.
In Sorenson’s absence, junior guard Sydney Bevington had a monster night on the boards. Bevington grabbed a team-high 18 rebounds, along with 12 points on 4 of 11 shooting from the field and 4 of 6 from the charity stripe.
Despite its low shooting percentage on Saturday, Fort Lewis won thanks to rebounding and forced turnovers. The Skyhawks out-rebounded the Eagles 51-39, an impressive feat out of a 2-3 zone defense. Fort Lewis caused 21 turnovers. Junior guard Sadie Misner had six steals in 25 minutes.
Harris also said he was happy with how his team finished. The Skyhawks had struggled in fourth quarters in recent games, but they shot 44% from the field and 55% from 3-point range to finish the fourth quarter with 22 points.
Fort Lewis will return to the court Nov. 27 to host Lincoln University.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
